Aldous Huxley

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.
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