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Studies of Sensation and Event

Poems: By Ebenezer Jones. Edited, Prefaced and Annotated by Richard Herne Shepherd with Memorial Notices of the Author by Sumner Jones and William James Linton

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WHEN THE WORLD IS BURNING.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


185

WHEN THE WORLD IS BURNING.

[_]

(STANZAS FOR MUSIC.)

When the world is burning,
Fired within, yet turning
Round with face unscathed;
Ere fierce flames, uprushing,
O'er all lands leap, crushing,
Till earth fall, fire-swathed;
Up amidst the meadows,
Gently through the shadows,
Gentle flames will glide,
Small, and blue, and golden.
Though by bard beholden,
When in calm dreams folden,—
Calm his dreams will bide.

186

Where the dance is sweeping,
Through the greensward peeping,
Shall the soft lights start;
Laughing maids, unstaying,
Deeming it trick-playing,
High their robes upswaying,
O'er the lights shall dart;
And the woodland haunter
Shall not cease to saunter
When, far down some glade,
Of the great world's burning
One soft flame upturning
Seems, to his discerning,
Crocus in the shade.
 

Printed in Ainsworth's Magazine, January, 1845.