O! THE rolling, rushing fire!
O! the fire!
How it rages, wilder, higher,
Like a hot heart’s fierce desire,
Thrilled with passion that appalls us,
Half appalls, and yet enthralls us,
O! the madly mounting fire!
Up it sweepeth,–wave and quiver,–
Roaring like an angry river,–
O! the fire!
Which an earthquake backward turneth,
Backward o’er its riven courses,
Backward to its mountain sources,
While the blood-red sunset burneth,
Like a God’s face grand with ire,
O! the bursting, billowy fire!
Now the sombre smoke-clouds thicken
To a dim Plutonian night;–
O! the fire!
How its flickering glories sicken,
Sicken at the blight!
Pales the flame, and spreads the vapor,
Till scarce larger than a taper,
Flares the waning, struggling light:
O! thou wan, faint-hearted fire,
Sadly darkling,
Weakly sparkling,
Rise! assert thy might!
Aspire! aspire!
At the word, a vivid lightning,
Threatening, swaying, darting, brightening,
Where the loftiest yule-log towers,–
Bursts once more,
Sudden bursts the awakened fire;
Hear it roar!
Roar, and mount high, high, and higher,
Till beneath,
Only here and there a wreath
Of the passing smoke-cloud lowers,–
Ha! the glad, victorious fire!
O! the fire!
How it changes,
Changes, ranges
Through all phases fancy-wrought,
Changes like a wizard thought;
See Vesuvian lavas rushing
‘Twixt the rocks! the ground asunder
Shivers at the earthquake’s thunder;
And the glare of Hell is flushing
Startled hill-top, quaking town;
Temples, statues, towers go down,
While beyond that lava flood,
Dark-red like blood,
I behold the children fleeting
Clasped by many a frenzied hand;
What a flight, and what a meeting,
On the ruined strand!
O! the fire!
Eddying higher, higher, higher
From the vast volcanic cones;
O! the agony, the groans
Of those thousands stifling there!
“Fancy,” say you? but how near
Seem the anguish and the fear!
Swelling, turbulent, pitiless fire:
‘Tis a mad northeastern breeze
Raving o’er the prairie seas;
How, like living things, the grasses
Tremble as the storm-breath passes,
Ere the flames’ devouring magic
Coils about their golden splendor,
And the tender
Glory of the mellowing fields
To the wild destroyer yields;
Dreadful waste for flowering blooms,
Desolate darkness, like the tomb’s,
Over which there broods the while,
Instead of daylight’s happy smile,
A pall malign and tragic!
Marvellous fire!
Changing, ranging
Through all phases fancy-wrought,
Changing like a charm
(Paul Hamilton Hayne)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Sadness Poems, Fire Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Smiling Poems, Fear Poems, Anger Poems, Children PoemsBased on Keywords: phases, appalls, faint-hearted, plutonian, dark-red, smoke-clouds, yule-log, smoke-cloud, vesuvian, lavas, storm-breath