Building the Fire

Tatyana Sergeevna

Building the Fire

from "Snowbound"

 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 

Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 

The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 

From sight beneath the smothering bank, 

We piled, with care, our nightly stack 

Of wood against the chimney-back,— 

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 

And on its top the stout back-stick; 

The knotty forestick laid apart, 

And filled between with curious art 

The ragged brush; then, hovering near, 

We watched the first red blaze appear, 

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 

Until the old, rude-furnished room 

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; 

While radiant with a mimic flame 

Outside the sparkling drift became, 

And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 

The crane and pendent trammels showed, 

The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed; 

While childish fancy, prompt to tell 

The meaning of the miracle, 

Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree, 

When fire outdoors burns merrily, 

There the witches are making tea.” 

The moon above the eastern wood 

Shone at its full; the hill-range stood 

Transfigured in the silver flood, 

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 

Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 

Took shadow, or the sombre green 

Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 

Against the whiteness at their back. 

For such a world and such a night 

Most fitting that unwarming light, 

Which only seemed where’er it fell 

To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 

We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 

Content to let the north-wind roar 

In baffled rage at pane and door, 

While the red logs before us beat 

The frost-line back with tropic heat; 

And ever, when a louder blast 

Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 

The merrier up its roaring draught 

The great throat of the chimney laughed; 

The house-dog on his paws outspread 

Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 

The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall 

A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall; 

And, for the winter fireside meet, 

Between the andirons’ straddling feet, 

The mug of cider simmered slow, 

The apples sputtered in a row, 

And, close at hand, the basket stood 

With nuts from brown October’s wood. 

John Greenleaf Whittier

"100 Plus American Poems" - Paul Malloy

 

"The sun, a snow-blown traveller."

 

"The old, rude-furnished room/ Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom."

 

 "Most fitting that unwarming light/Which only seemed where'ere it fell/to make the coldness visible.""The cat's dark silhouette on the wall/A couchant tiger's seemed to fall."

 

 

O to be snowbound.