Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812–1848)

THIS bright wood-fire

So like to that which warmed and lit

My youthful days—how doth it flit

Back on the periods nigher,

Relighting and rewarming with its glow

The bright scenes of my youth—all gone out now.

How eagerly its flickering blaze doth catch

On every point now wrapped in time’s deep shade,

Into what wild grotesqueness by its flash

And fitful checquering is the picture made!

When I am glad or gay,

Let me walk forth into the brilliant sun,

And with congenial rays be shone upon;

When I am sad, or thought-bewitched would be,

Let me glide forth in moonlight’s mystery,

But never, while I live this changeful life,

This past and future with all wonders rife,

Never, bright flame, may be denied to me

Thy dear, life-imaging, close sympathy.

What but my hopes shot upward e’er so bright?

What but my fortunes sank so low in night?

Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,

Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all?

Was thy existence then too fanciful

For our life’s common light, who are so dull?

Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold

With our congenial souls? secrets too bold?

Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit

Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,

Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire

Warms feet and hands—nor does to more aspire;

By whose compact, utilitarian heap,

The present may sit down and go to sleep,

Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,

And with us by the unequal light of the old wood-fire talked.