Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FIRES, by HARRIET SEYMOUR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FIRES, by                    
First Line: Beside the orange spatterings of fire
Last Line: We turned to go, in silent, sudden pain.
Subject(s): Pain; Storms; Suffering; Misery


Beside the orange spatterings of fire
That fleck the wall-like blackness of the night,
We sat in ecstasy, my dearest one,
And dreamed of other fires, wild and bright.

But as we dreamed, the fire burned down and down,
Becoming cracking embers, red-hot still,
Then falling soon to ashes, crumbling gray—
A cold, dead heap of nothing on the hill!

"This cannot happen to our fire," we cried—
"Its flame is here in us, sweet, leaping, warm—
And yet, beloved, like a drum, we heard
The strange insistence of the coming storm.

The searching winds too quickly found that heap
And threw it in the drenched face of the rain.
Then every trace of our brave fire was gone—
We turned to go, in silent, sudden pain.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net