| |
| SEE, the fire is sinking low, | |
| Dusky red the embers glow, | |
| While above them still I cower, | |
| While a moment more I linger, | |
| Though the clock, with lifted finger, | 5 |
| Points beyond the midnight hour. | |
| |
| Sings the blackened log a tune | |
| Learned in some forgotten June | |
| From a school-boy at his play, | |
| When they both were young together, | 10 |
| Heart of youth and summer weather | |
| Making all their holiday. | |
| |
| And the night-wind rising, hark! | |
| How above there in the dark, | |
| In the midnight and the snow, | 15 |
| Ever wilder, fiercer, grander, | |
| Like the trumpets of Iskander, | |
| All the noisy chimneys blow! | |
| |
| Every quivering tongue of flame | |
| Seems to murmur some great name, | 20 |
| Seems to say to me, “Aspire!” | |
| But the night-wind answers, “Hollow | |
| Are the visions that you follow, | |
| Into darkness sinks your fire!” | |
| |
| Then the flicker of the blaze | 25 |
| Gleams on volumes of old days, | |
| Written by masters of the art, | |
| Loud through whose majestic pages | |
| Rolls the melody of ages, | |
| Throb the harp-strings of the heart. | 30 |
| |
| And again the tongues of flame | |
| Start exulting and exclaim: | |
| “These are prophets, bards, and seers; | |
| In the horoscope of nations, | |
| Like ascendant constellations, | 35 |
| They control the coming years.” | |
| |
| But the night-wind cries: “Despair! | |
| Those who walk with feet of air | |
| Leave no long-enduring marks; | |
| At God’s forges incandescent | 40 |
| Mighty hammers beat incessant, | |
| These are but the flying sparks. | |
| |
| “Dust are all the hands that wrought; | |
| Books are sepulchres of thought; | |
| The dead laurels of the dead | 45 |
| Rustle for a moment only, | |
| Like the withered leaves in lonely | |
| Churchyards at some passing tread.” | |
| |
| Suddenly the flame sinks down; | |
| Sink the rumors of renown; | 50 |
| And alone the night-wind drear | |
| Clamors louder, wilder, vaguer,— | |
| “’T is the brand of Meleager | |
| Dying on the hearth-stone here!” | |
| |
| And I answer,—“Though it be, | 55 |
| Why should that discomfort me? | |
| No endeavor is in vain; | |
| Its reward is in the doing, | |
| And the rapture of pursuing | |
| Is the prize the vanquished gain.” | 60 |
| |
