THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, 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, 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, The first slight swerving of the heart, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in too great excess. THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 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, The flames would leap and then expire. And, as their splendor flashed and failed, And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames,- 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. |