Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FIRE, by ELIZA COOK Poet's Biography First Line: Blandly glowing, richly bright Last Line: A ruined soul and blackened fame. Subject(s): Fire | ||||||||
Blandly glowing, richly bright, Cheering star of social light; While I gently heap it higher, How I bless thee, sparkling fire! Who loves not the kindling rays Streaming from the tempered blaze? Who can sit beneath his hearth Dead to feeling, stern to mirth? Who can watch the crackling pile And keep his breast all cold the while? Fire is good, but it must serve: Keep it thralled -- for if it swerve Into freedom's open path, What shall check its maniac wrath? Where's the tongue that can proclaim The fearful work of curbless flame? Darting wide and shooting high, It lends a horror to the sky; It rushes on to waste, to scare, Arousing terror and despair; It tells the utmost earth can know About the demon scenes below; And sinks at last, all spent and dead, Among the ashes it has spread. Sure the poet is not wrong To gleam a moral from the song. Listen, youth! nor scorn, nor frown, Thou must chain thy passions down. Well to serve, but ill to sway, Like the fire they must obey. They are good in subject state To strengthen, warm, and animate; But if once we let them reign, They sweep with desolating train, Till they but leave a hated name, A ruined soul and blackened fame. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WRITTEN TO A YOUNG LADY by MAURICE BARING OUR DRIFTWOOD FIRE by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE NIGHT FIRE by CLAUDE MCKAY WATER, WINTER, FIRE by MARVIN BELL THE LITTLE FIRE IN THE WOODS by HAYDEN CARRUTH SAMSON PREDICTS FROM GAZA THE PHILADELPHIA FIRE by LUCILLE CLIFTON ALADDIN LAMP by MADELINE DEFREES |
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