LIGHTING THE FIRE

You were a gipsy as you bent

Your dark hair over the black grate.

Hardly the west light above the hill

Showed your shadow, crooked and still.

The bellows hissed, and one bright spark

Deepened the hasty dark.

The bellows hissed, and the old smell

Crept on the air of smoking peat,

And round the spark a bubbling flame

Grew bright and loud. Sweeping the gloom

Lunatic shadows fled and came

Whirling about the room.

Then as you raised your head I saw

In the clear light of the bubbling fire

Your dark hair all lined with the gray

Sprinkled by years and sorrow and pain...

Till as the bellows idle lay

Shadow swept back again.