THE GRATE FIRE

I'm sorry for a fellow if he cannot look and see

In a grate fire's friendly flaming all the joys which used to be.

If in quiet contemplation of a cheerful ruddy blaze

He sees nothing there recalling all his happy yesterdays,

Then his mind is dead to fancy and his life is bleak and bare,

And he's doomed to walk the highways that are always thick with care.

When the logs are dry as tinder and they crackle with the heat,

And the sparks, like merry children, come a-dancing round my feet,

In the cold, long nights of autumn I can sit before the blaze

And watch a panorama born of all my yesterdays.

I can leave the present burdens and that moment's bit of woe,

And claim once more the gladness of the bygone long ago.

  "The Grate Fire" From a drawing by W. T. Benda. 

"The Grate Fire" From a drawing by W. T. Benda.

W. T. Benda

There are no absent faces in the grate fire's merry throng;

No hands in death are folded, and no lips are stilled to song.

All the friends who were are living—like the sparks that fly about;

[Pg 41]

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