The presence of nature in my winter room With curtains drawn across the clouds and stars, Lakes, fells, and green sweet meadows far away Is fire, older and more wild than they. Fire will outlast them all and take them all For into fire the autumn woods must fall. Spring blossoming is the slow combustion of the tree, The phoenix fire that burns bird beast and flower away. Once Troy and Dido's Carthaginian pyre And Baldur's ship, and fabulous London burning, Robes, wooden walls and crystal palaces In their apotheosis were such flames as these Flames more fluent than water of a mountain stream, Flames more delicate and swift than air, Flames more impassable than walls of stone, Destructive and irrevocable as time. Essential fire is the unhindered spirit That, laid upon the lips of prophecy Frees all the shining elements of the soul; Whose burning teaches love the way to die And selves to undergo their ultimate destruction Upon those flaming ramparts of the world That rise between our fate, and the lost garden. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FREEDOM AND LOVE by THOMAS CAMPBELL WHEN THE KYE CAME HOME by JAMES HOGG DOG AND CAT by RUTH ANDERSON BARNETT IDYLL 3. THE TEACHER TAUGHT by BION PHANTOMS IN GREEN by STANLEY KILNER BOOTH |