The Fire of Drift-wood

Elton Bennett

The Fire of Drift-wood

We sat within the farm-house old,

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,

Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,

An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,

The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,

The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,

Descending, filled the little room;

Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said,

Of what had been, and might have been,

And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain,

Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,

And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,

That words are powerless to express,

And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark;

The leaves of memory seemed to make

A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire

Built of the wreck of stranded ships,

The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,

We thought of wrecks upon the main,

Of ships dismasted, that were hailed

And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,

The ocean, roaring up the beach,

The gusty blast, the bickering flames,

All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain,

The long-lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!

They were indeed too much akin,

The drift-wood fire without that burned,

The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The weather has changed. We can feel Autumn in the air. The rains have started. Here some friends are looking into the fire and talking –“The leaves of memory seemed to make/ A mournful rustling in the dark.” Oh I love that line (and that the fire is made from the wood of wrecked ships). Such a beautifully melancholy mood, perfect for this time of year. And that gorgeous conclusion – “The driftwood fire without that burned./ The thoughts that burned and glowed within.” I wish I could’ve found an image more true to the scene in the poem, but the rain and the shoreline and fire are so lovely in themselves.