THE CAMP FIRE

Beauty is love and, hence is heightening fire,

Consuming Nature. All the dark can bring

To quench it, feeds it. Look! how everything

Is caught in the blaze, which mounts up high and higher!

Oh! truly, 'tis a vision to inspire

The soul with transport, more than joy can sing;

For, if not for the blaze, what cold would sting

Poor mortals, who crowd round it, nigh and nigher!

Is beauty not the camp-fire, which one host

Leaves burning for another, close behind?

Yea, yea, the Powers Divine, O Human Kind!

Have left their camp-fire burning on the coast,

Where they embarked from glimpse of Human mind,

To give you warmth and light to hold your post.