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1 OH, fire who purgeth us | |
| In fate-kindled strife, | |
| Thy beauty ruleth us, | |
| Shining with life! | |
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2 Still and meek in the glow of a taper in church, | 5 |
| But in riot—tumultuous-tongued, | |
| Unmoved by wild prayers, multi-faced, | |
| Shot with color in walls overthrown, | |
| Mad with passion, and nimble and gay,— | |
| So triumphantly beautiful | 10 |
| That my eyes are alight with thy joy | |
| Though thou feed on my own,— | |
| O fair Fire, all my dreams are devoted to thee! | |
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3 Eternally changeful, | |
| Thou art Protean-faced. | 15 |
| Thou art smokily crimson | |
| In the bonfires’ roar. | |
| Thou art as a flower of terror with petals of flame, | |
| A bright mane of radiant hair. | |
| In the tremulous flame of a taper thou burn’st | 20 |
| First in blue, then in shuddering gold. | |
| In the silence of midsummer lightnings thou wak’st, | |
| Burning coldly in storm-burdened clouds, | |
| Eerily livid and dark. | |
| In the thunder that crashes, the chanting of rain, | 25 |
| Thou art writ in the lightning’s brief hieroglyphs, | |
| In a quick broken flash | |
| Or a long mighty shaft, | |
| Now a ball with a nimbus of air all aglow | |
| Where the swift-running gold | 30 |
| Is with scarlet besprent. | |
| Thou art in the crystal of stars, in the comets’ strong urge. | |
| Sun-sent, thou dost enter the chambers of plants | |
| With the gift of a quickening warmth. | |
| Thou workest, thou wakest the secret of sap: | 35 |
| Flaming up in a scarlet carnation, | |
| Pale gold in the whispering corn, | |
| Or carelessly flung in a lithe drunken vine. | |
| Thou art lying in wait: | |
| As a spark in the night | 40 |
| So thou leapest elate. | |
| Thou art still in thy flight. | |
| Soon thy glow shall abate, | |
| But alive thou art great, | |
| Than thy beauty is nothing more strange or more bright. | 45 |
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4 I shall chant thy high praises forever! | |
| O sudden, O subtle, O terrible Fire! | |
| Thy work is the melting of metals; | |
| By thy aid are they fashioned and forged: | |
| The ponderous horse-shoes; | 50 |
| The resounding and bright-bladed scythes: | |
| That mow and that reap, | |
| That mow and that reap; | |
| Many circlets for lily-white fingers, | |
| For ring-bounded lives, | 55 |
| For ring-fettered years, | |
| As with lips growing cold the word ‘love’ | |
| We repeat. | |
| Thou createst the tools and machines | |
| That shake mountains and shatter and smite, | 60 |
| The tools that find deep-buried gold, the keenness of weapons that kill. | |
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5 Unto thee, omnipresent and sovereign, my dreaming I vow. | |
| I am even as thou. | |
| Thou dost light, thou dost burn, thou dost strive, | |
| Thou art ’live, thou art ’live! | 65 |
| Of old a winged dragon thou wert, to the altar didst glide | |
| Thence to ravish the bride. | |
| And a fiery guest, a consoler who warmed to the bone | |
| The young wife left alone. | |
| O brilliant, O burning, O biting, O fierce, | 70 |
| In thy flame all the colors arise. | |
| Thou art crimson and yellow, thy gleaming doth pierce | |
| With the glow of chameleon gold and the scarlet that lights autumn skies. | |
| Thou art as a diamond with facets that shine, | |
| As the feline caress of soft eyes that are heady as wine, | 75 |
| As the wave in its ecstasy breaking, an emerald line. | |
| Like the leaf’s iridescence agleam with reiterant Springs | |
| In the dewdrop that trembles and swings. | |
| Like the green dream of fireflies kindled at night, | |
| Like the will-o’-the-wisp in the haze, | 80 |
| Like the dark, scalloped clouds the grave evening has gilded with light, | |
| That have spread forth their mourning upon the dim face of the smoldering days. | |
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6 I remember, O Fire, | |
| How thy flames once enkindled my flesh, | |
| Among writhing witches caught close in thy flame-woven mesh. | 85 |
| How, tortured for having beheld what is secret, | |
| We were flung to the fire for the joy of our sabbath. | |
| But to those who had seen what we saw | |
| Yea, Fire was naught. | |
| Ah, well I remember | 90 |
| The buildings ablaze where we burned | |
| In the fires we lit, and smiled to behold the flames wind | |
| About us, the faithful, among all the faithless and blind. | |
| To the chanting of prayers, the frenzy of flame, | |
| We sang thy hosannahs, oh strength-giving Fire: | 95 |
| I pledged love to thee from the pyre! | |
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7 Oh, Fire, I know | |
| That thy light with an ultimate splendor our being shall drench; | |
| It shall flare up before eyes that Death fain would finally quench. | |
| With swift knowledge it burns, and with joy heaven-high | 100 |
| At the vastness of vistas unfolding afar. | |
| Who has summoned those visions to being? And why? | |
| Who has rayed them in colors befitting a star? | |
| Beyond life is the answer. | |
| Oh thou heavenward heart of the element ever in flight, | 105 |
| On my twilight horizon, let Death, necromancer, | |
| Shed perpetual light! | |
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