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THE FIREFLIES, SELECTION, by                    
First Line: How dreamy-dark it is!
Last Line: And dreads its captor and his handsel touch.


How dreamy-dark it is!
Men yawn for weariness, and hoard their gains,
While careful housewives drown the kitchen fires. ....
The plodding oxen, dragging creaky wains
O'er bosky roads, their ancient horns entwine,
Lick their huge joles, and think of bedded stalls,
And munching of sweet corn. The lick'rous swine
Huddled in routed turf, neglect the calls
And pinches of their young, and hide their dugs,
Swoll'n with a lazy milk, whilst timid sheep,
Far from their winter-folds of knotty fir,
Dream of lean wolves and bleatings in their sleep.

Yet there are those that oft the silence mock,
For life wings through the darkness everywhere,
And night's dull, ugly brood is all astir.
The flapping bat and hungry-snapping hawk
Now glut themselves with innocent, droning flies,
Whisked from the dingy commonwealth of air.
The loathsome toad, which foul infection breeds
And lep'rous sores, hops o'er the dusty walk,
And, in the hollows where the river lies,
The hoarse frogs sprawl among the bedded reeds,
And croak harsh ditties to their uncouth mates. ....

This is the hour
When fire-flies flit about each lofty crag,
And down the valleys sail on lucid wing. ....
I see them glimmer where the waters lag
By winding bays, and to the willows sing;
And, far away, where stands the forest dim,
Huge-built of old, their tremulous lights are seen.
High overhead they gleam like trailing stars,
Then sink adown, until their emerald sheen
Dies in the darkness like an evening hymn—
Anon to float again in glorious bars
Of streaming rapture, such as man may hear
When the soul casts its slough of mortal fear.
And now they make rich spangles in the grass,
Gilding the night-dew on the tender blade;
Then hover o'er the meadow-pools to gaze
At their bright forms shrined in the dreamy glass
Which earth, and air, and bounteous rain have made.
One moment, and the thicket is ablaze
With twinkling lamps which swing from bough to bough:
Another, and like sylphids they descend
To cheer the brook-side where the bell-flow'rs grow.
Near and more near they softly come, until
Their little life is busy at my feet;
They glow around me, and my fancies blend
Capriciously with their delight, and fill
My wakeful bosom with unwonted heat.
One lights upon my hand, and there I clutch
With an alarming finger its quick wing:
Erstwhile so free, it pants, the tender thing!
And dreads its captor and his handsel touch.





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