This is no hearth-kept blaze. If only the heart will hold it, maybe I can carry a brand to the ever lonely hearth to welcome a passerby or a neighbor -- anyone at all! -- but who is drawn to a daemon's call? This is no steady flame. To glimmer a while, to catch on resin and flare, to crackle at hindrances, grow dimmer with night and dampness, wildly glare, blind some and roar at others -- these are tricks of fire betrayed to the breeze. This is pursuing fire. Its fuming hostility melts the will like snow; compelled, I watch the wild consuming and tremble: Strangely, now I know this is a fire that none will tame -- the searched and seaching protoflame! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: THE PORTRAIT by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON FIVE EYES by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA by ANDREW LANG A SPIRITUAL AND WELL-ORDERED MIND by HENRY ALFORD |