| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | When the World Is Burning | | By Ebenezer Jones (1820–1860) |
| | | WHEN the world is burning, | |
| Fired within, yet turning | |
| Round with face unscathed; | |
| Ere fierce flames, uprushing, | |
| O’er all lands leap, crushing, | 5 |
| Till earth fall, fire-swathed; | |
| Up amidst the meadows, | |
| Gently through the shadows, | |
| Gentle flames will glide, | |
| Small, and blue, and golden. | 10 |
| Though by bard beholden, | |
| When in calm dreams folden,— | |
| Calm his dreams will bide. | |
| |
| Where the dance is sweeping, | |
| Through the greensward peeping, | 15 |
| Shall the soft lights start; | |
| Laughing maids, unstaying, | |
| Deeming it trick-playing, | |
| High their robes upswaying, | |
| O’er the lights shall dart; | 20 |
| And the woodland haunter | |
| Shall not cease to saunter | |
| When, far down some glade, | |
| Of the great world’s burning, | |
| One soft flame upturning | 25 |
| Seems, to his discerning, | |
| Crocus in the shade. | | | | |
|
|
