Classic Poem

Prisoners in the dark of wood,
Fast in fibred solitude,
Passionate scarlet-silken things —
Dancing daggered folk with wings —
Fettered children of the sun
Who would storm the sky and run
Flame-armed, uniformed with light,
Burning death and spurning night,
Exiled and disarmed must lie
Locked in wood until they die
Or until the blazing key
Of a match shall set them free;
Then in a wild flash and maze,
Fiercer for their dungeon days,
Up they quiver integral,
While their cells and fetters fall
Ashes ... and they leap and run
Upward to their Lord, the sun. ...

(Pity, pity us who lie
Wooden flames until we die!)