By The Fire

We who are lovers sit by the fire,     Cradled warm 'twixt thought and will,     Sit and drowse like sleeping dogs     In the equipoise of all desire,     Sit and listen to the still     Small hiss and whisper of green logs     That burn away, that burn away     With the sound of a far-off falling stream     Of threaded water blown to steam,     Grey ghost in the mountain world of grey.     Vapours blue as distance rise     Between the hissing logs that show     A glimpse of rosy heat below;     And candles watch with tireless eyes     While we sit drowsing here. I know,     Dimly, that there exists a world,     That there is time perhaps, and space     Other and wider than this place,     Where at the fireside drowsily curled     We hear the whisper and watch the flame     Burn blinkless and inscrutable.     And then I know those other names     That through my brain from cell to cell     Echo--reverberated shout     Of waiters mournful along corridors:     But nobody carries the orders out,     And the names (dear friends, your name and yours)     Evoke no sign. But here I sit     On the wide hearth, and there are you:     That is enough and only true.     The world and the friends that lived in it     Are shadows: you alone remain     Real in this drowsing room,     Full of the whispers of distant rain     And candles staring into the gloom.