Classic Poem

Happy, happy glowing fire!

Zephyr
Fragrant air! delicious light!

Dusketha
Let me to my glooms retire!

Breama
I to green-weed rivers bright!

Salamander
Happy, happy glowing fire!
Dazzling bowers of soft retire,
Ever let my nourished wing,
Like a bat's, still wandering,
Nimbly fan your fiery spaces,
Spirit sole in deadly places.
In unhaunted roar and blaze,
Open eyes that never daze,
Let me see the myriad shapes
Of men and beasts, and fish, and apes,
Portrayed in many a fiery den,
And wrought by spumy bitumen
On the deep intenser roof,
Archèd every way aloof.
Let me breathe upon their skies,
And anger their live tapestries;
Free from cold, and every care,
Of chilly rain, and shivering air.

Zephyr
Spirit of Fire! away! away!
Or your very roundelay
Will sear my plumage newly budded
From its quillèd sheath, and studded
With the self-same dews that fell
On the May-grown asphodel.
Spirit of Fire! away! away!

Breama
Spirit of Fire! away! away!
Zephyr, blue-eyed, Faery, turn,
And see my cool sedge-buried urn,
Where it rests its mossy brim
'Mid water-mint and cresses dim;
And the flowers, in sweet troubles,
Lift their eyes above the bubbles,
Like our Queen, when she would please
To sleep, and Oberon will tease,
Love me, blue-eyed Faery true,
Soothly I am sick for you.

Zephyr
Gentle Breama! by the first
Violet young nature nursed,
I will bathe myself with thee,
So you sometime follow me
To my home, far, far, in west,
Beyond the nimble-wheelèd quest
Of the golden-presenced sun;
Come with me, o'er tops of trees,
To my fragrant palaces,
Where they ever floating are
Beneath the cherish of a star
Called Vesper, who with silver veil
Ever hides his brilliance pale,
Ever gently-drowsed doth keep
Twilight for the Fays to sleep.
Fear not that your watery hair
Will thirst in drouthy ringlets there;
Clouds of storèd summer rains
Thou shalt taste, before the stains
From the mountain soil they take,
And too unlucent for thee make.
I love thee, crystal Faery, true!
Sooth I am as sick for you!

Salamander
Out, ye aguish Faeries, out!
Chilly lovers, what a rout
Keep ye with your frozen breath,
Colder than the mortal death.
Adder-eyed Dusketha, speak,
Shall we leave these, and go seek
In the earth's wide entrails old
Couches warm as theirs is cold?
O for a fiery gloom and thee,
Dusketha, so enchantingly
Freckle-winged and lizard-sided!

Dusketha
By thee, Sprite, will I be guided!
I care not for cold or heat;
Frost or flame, or sparks, or sleet,
To my essence are the same —
But I honour more the flame.
Sprite of Fire, I follow thee
Wheresoever it may be,
To the torrid spouts and fountains,
Underneath earth-quakèd mountains;
Or, at thy supreme desire,
Touch the very pulse of fire
With my bare unlidded eyes.

Salamander
Sweet Dusketha! Paradise!
Off, ye icy Spirits, fly!
Frosty creatures of the sky!

Dusketha
Breathe upon them, fiery Sprite!

Zephyr And Breama
Away! away to our delight!

Salamander
Go, feed on icicles, while we
Bedded in tongued flames will be.

Dusketha
Lead me to those feverous glooms,
Sprite of Fire!

Breama
Me to the blooms,
Blue-eyed Zephyr, of those flowers
Far in the west where the May-cloud lowers;
And the beams of still Vesper, when winds are all whist,
Are shed through the rain and the milder mist,
And twilight your floating bowers.