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.