He visioned a home by pure love blest,
Clasping their souls in a calmer rest,
Like woodland birds in their leafy nest.
There slept, foreshadowed, the bliss to be,
When a tenderer life that home should see,
In the wingless cherub that climbed his knee.
And the flame went on with its flickering song,
And beckoned and laughed to the lovers long,
Who sat in its radiance, red and strong.
Then broke and fell a glimmering brand
To the cold, dead ashes it fed and fanned,
And its last gleam leaped like an infant's hand.
A sudden dread to the maiden stole,
For the gloom of a sorrow seemed to roll
O'er the sunny landscape within her soul.
But, hovering over its smouldering bed,
Its ruddy pinions the flame outspread,
And again through the chamber its glory shed;
And ever its chorus seemed to be
The mingled voices of household glee,
Like a gush of winds in a mountain tree.
The night went on in its silent flow,
While through the waving and wreathéd glow
They watched the years of the Future go.
Their happy spirits learned the chime
Of its laughing voice and murmured rhyme—
A joyous music for aftertime.
They felt a flame as glorious start,
Where, side by side, they dwelt apart,
In the quiet homestead of the heart.