The first fire of the season warms my hearth:
Like a bright moth that long ensheathed has lain,
Shaking its wings of many an orient stain,
It leaves the prisoning oak log's sturdy girth.
Fresh with the new old gladness of the earth,
Renascent, it springs forth: and I am fain
(Having beheld the Summer droop and wane),
To think that here she has her true rebirth.
Ay--the sweet spirit of the Summer flown!
For, when, beside the fire, I close my eyes,
I hear so many sounds that I have known,
In Summer shade, or under Summer skies--
The whir of insects in the fields new mown--
The call of birds--and happy leaf-drawn sighs!