By the Fireside

WHAT is it fades and nickers 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,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 boughsSang of the torrent, and the plashy edgeOf storm-swept lakes; and echoes that arouseThe eagles from some 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;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.

Pictures far lovelier smoulder in the fire,Visions of friends who walked among these trees,Whose presence, like the free air, could inspireA winged life and boundless sympathies.

Eyes with a glow like that in the brown beech,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 awayFrom the familiar glens, the haunted hills,—Most pitiful and strange it is to stayWithout 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,And tints and perfumes of the woodland sod?

Dear for your sake the fireside where we sitWatching these sad, bright pictures come and go;That waning years are with your memory lit,Is now the lonely comfort that we know.

Is it all memory? Lo, these forest-boughsBurst 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,They find, a life won only out of death.—O sainted souls, within you still is nursedFor us a flame not fed by mortal breath.

Unseen, you bring to this, erewhile your home,Fresh air from the new country close above;Through no oblivious heaven your footsteps roam;Alive in God, you bless us with His love.