| |
| WHAT is it fades and flickers in the fire, | |
| Mutters and sighs, and yields reluctant breath, | |
| As if in the red embers some desire, | |
| Some word prophetic burned, defying death? | |
| |
| Lords of the forest, stalwart oak and pine, | 5 |
| Lie down for us in flames of martyrdom: | |
| A human, household warmth, their death-fires shine; | |
| Yet fragrant with high memories they come, | |
| |
| Bringing the mountain-winds that in their boughs | |
| Sang of the torrent, and the plashy edge | 10 |
| Of storm-swept lakes; and echoes that arouse | |
| The eagles from a splintered eyrie ledge; | |
| |
| And breath of violets sweet about their roots; | |
| And earthy odors of the moss and fern; | |
| And hum of rivulets; smell of ripening fruits; | 15 |
| And green leaves that to gold and crimson turn. | |
| |
| What clear Septembers fade out in a spark! | |
| What rare Octobers drop with every coal! | |
| Within these costly ashes, dumb and dark, | |
| Are hid spring’s budding hope, and summer’s soul. | 20 |
| |
| Pictures far lovelier smoulder in the fire, | |
| Visions of friends who walk among these trees, | |
| Whose presence, like the free air, could inspire | |
| A wingèd life and boundless sympathies; | |
| |
| Eyes with a glow like that in a brown beech, | 25 |
| When sunset through its autumn beauty shines, | |
| Or the blue gentian’s look of silent speech, | |
| To heaven appealing as earth’s light declines; | |
| |
| Voices and steps forever fled away | |
| From the familiar glens, the haunted hills,— | 30 |
| Most pitiful and strange it is to stay | |
| Without you in a world your lost love fills. | |
| |
| Do you forget us,—under Eden trees, | |
| Or in full sunshine on the hills of God,— | |
| Who miss you from the shadow and the breeze, | 35 |
| And tints and perfumes of the woodland sod? | |
| |
| Dear for your sake the fireside where we sit | |
| Watching these sad, bright pictures come and go; | |
| That waning years are with your memory lit | |
| Is the one lonely comfort that we know. | 40 |
| |
| Is it all memory? Lo, these forest-boughs | |
| Burst on the hearth into fresh leaf and bloom; | |
| Waft a vague, far-off sweetness through the house, | |
| And give close walls the hillside’s breathing room. | |
| |
| A second life, more spiritual than the first, | 45 |
| They find,—a life won only out of death. | |
| O sainted souls, within you still is nursed | |
| For us a name not fed by mortal breath. | |
| |
| Unseen, ye bring to us, who love and wait, | |
| Wafts from the heavenly hills, immortal air; | 50 |
| No flood can quench your hearts’ warmth, or abate; | |
| Ye are our gladness, here and everywhere. | |
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