Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FIRE FANTASY, by FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS GIFFORD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FIRE FANTASY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Flame flies up in the chimney black
Last Line: Coming -- back ----?
Alternate Author Name(s): Davis, Fannie Stearns
Subject(s): Fire


FLAME flies up in the chimney black.
Here I lie and bid him come back.

Here I lie, on the fox-skin, white
As silver under the leaping light, --
White and furry and kind and warm. --
Out by the window scurries the storm.

"Flame! O crinkly curly Flame!
Where are you going? What is your name?
Is it a star you are flying to?
Stay and tell me, O You! -- O You!"

But the flame he never, never comes back.
I lie and stare up the chimney black.

Out in the hall the great clock chimes.
His voice is solemn as holy rhymes
That good monks made in old cloister cells,
Somehow charmed to sing in his bells,
Out in the dark, all deep and low,
Like sea-waves swinging to and fro.

Here it is very still and warm,
But out on the window batters the storm.
If I were a ship, I would die to-night;
If I were a bird, I would freeze in my flight;
If I were a ghost, I would keep to my grave.
-- But now, I watch how the wide flames wave.
Now, I dream of a thousand things:
Summer, and sea-foam, and queens, and kings.

Flame flies up in the chimney black.
If I were a flame, would I ever come back?
If I got to a star, I would never come back.

But there are no stars at all to-night.
Up in the sky there is never a light:
Only the souls of the flames, and they
Are thin and nervous, and scudding gray.
They blow, they blow, they shudder and blow.
The wind he hates them and hustles them so.

"Wind! O Wind! -- Are you mad?" But he
Shrieks and is gone without answering me.

Flame flies up in the chimney black.
I am too sleepy to call him back.

Now it is time to go to bed:
Furry fox, my head to your head;
Long warm fox, my back to your back;
I stretch, I stretch, till my best bones crack.
-- I am so still with sleep, and warm.
-- Out on the window shivers the storm.

Sleepy fire, now purr and fall.
Great old clock in the dusky hall,
Chime for me; chime deep, chime low,
Like sea-waves swinging to and fro.

-- I saw in my eyes a queer thing then.
There was a woman with two tall men.
She had a blue shawl over her head.
One of them wore a cloak, blood-red.
The other one had a sword. And she
Was fair as an old-time queen to see.
They had been travelling -- far -- so far --
-- But oh, in my eyes a falling star!
Drowned in the sea. -- And I saw a ship
With square sails over the sea's edge slip, --
I wonder -- wonder -- where. --
Oh, then
I saw -- gaunt hills, and a black old fen --
A wind-mill, -- water. -- I saw -- I saw --
Sun-burnt boys and a stack of straw,
Yellow, yellow! and swallows flew --
-- Was her shawl yellow, or was it blue, --
Over her head -- ? --
Oh, I am so warm.
Out on the window tumbles the storm.

I am so sleepy -- the chimney is black --
Flame -- flame -- are you coming back? --
Have you found a star? -- are you coming back --
Coming back --
Coming -- back ----?





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