V.—ON FIRE.
Scarce dead the echo of our evening song
That o’er the camp-fire’s whirling blaze up-soared
With wealth of hidden human sweetness stored—
Life-thoughts that thronged the spoken words along;
Scarce lost our lingering footsteps on the moss,
When the slow embers, that we fancied slept,
With purpose sure and step unfaltering crept
The sheltering mountain’s unsmirched brow across.
Alas! for straining eyes that through long days
Of strong-breathed west wind saw the pale smoke-drift
Its threat’ning pennons in the distance lift,
So setting discord in sweet notes of praise.
Yet hath the wounded mountain in each thought
Won dearer love for wrong, unwilling, wrought.