Ebenezer Jones (1820–1860)

WHEN the world is burning,

Fired within, yet turning

Round with face unscathed;

Ere fierce flames, uprushing,

O’er all lands leap, crushing,

Till earth fall, fire-swathed;

Up amidst the meadows,

Gently through the shadows,

Gentle flames will glide,

Small, and blue, and golden.

Though by bard beholden,

When in calm dreams folden,—

Calm his dreams will bide.

Where the dance is sweeping,

Through the greensward peeping,

Shall the soft lights start;

Laughing maids, unstaying,

Deeming it trick-playing,

High their robes upswaying,

O’er the lights shall dart;

And the woodland haunter

Shall not cease to saunter

When, far down some glade,

Of the great world’s burning,

One soft flame upturning

Seems, to his discerning,

Crocus in the shade.