Fire Flies

See the air filling near by and afar--
A shadowy host--how brilliant they are!

Silently flitting, spark upon spark,
Gemming the willows out in the dark;

Waking the night in a twinkling surprise,
Making the starlight pale where they rise;

Snowing soft fire-flakes into the grass,
Lighting the face of each daisy they pass;

Dancing like jewels high up in the pines;
Drowsily poised on the low-swinging vines;

Startling the darkness, over and over,
Where the sly pimpernel kisses the clover;

Suddenly setting their tapers around,
Now on the fences, now on the ground,

Now on the bushes and tree-tops, and then
Pitching them far into darkness again;

There like a shooting-star, slowly on wing,
Here like the flash of a dowagers ring;

Playing their pranks of living and dying
All in an instant, merrily flying;

Setting the dark, croaking hollows a-gleam,
Spangling the gloom of the ghoul-haunted stream;

Sweet in their gentleness, daring, and cheer,
No depth too dark for them, no place too drear;

They pulse and they sparkle, they glimmer and glow,
Teaching a lesson wherever they go:

Ever in gentle souls shineth a light--
Trusting it ever, no gloom can affright.