FIREFLY! wait, but a moment, in your flight;
Stay, gleaming thing, and tell me of that night,
When you were taken by a fairy hand,
And cast into the grate to light the brand,
In that fair room of bliss and rosy dream.
For love of God! I pray you, moving beam
Of light, stay, now my memory is woke—
You will not leave me now you do invoke
My thought to that dear night, long gone, when she,
With elfin joy, went out and captured thee.
You circle round my head, a band of flame—
A light that fades as quickly as it came.
O fickle fly, deny me not, come burn
For me, and let me from this torture turn;
In recollection’s refuge seek relief
From loneliness, the torn soul’s awful grief.
Come, bright or dark, do you but circle near,
Where you alone in night my words may hear.
What of my love? My wondrous love, who caught
You winging that sweet night, as swift as thought,
And threw you on the logs to start the fire,
Whose gleams revealed to me my heart’s desire?
Matchless! all in her loveliness and grace—
Soft as her humour, happy as her face.
Where is she now? Oh, where is my lost love,
My fairy mistress, gentle as a dove?
Does she in cockle leaves hide long night through,
Fearful of the clouds, shrinking from the dew?
I never see her now! The fire no more
In flick’ring rays lights up my sad heart’s core.
There is no warmth in life now she is gone.
The sun disdains the man it shines upon.
A wretched thing, bereft of all his joy,
Goes wand’ring through the night, where fays employ
The hours in dirges drear, and weirdly mourn
For her, their queen, long lost to fairy bourn.
Come, Jack O’Lantern, lead me to my mate—
She who alone can my distress abate,
She who will wipe all storms of grief away,
She whose dear radiance makes my perfect day!
Alas! you heed me not, your lamp is out,
You hide away in darkness, black as doubt,
You light, to mock the faithful, false as hell,
You, in and out, you phosphorescent sell—
I will have naught to do with you. Go, shine,
And make a fool of souls less tough than mine.
A weary round is day, and night is torn
By all the bitter conflicts day has worn;
The hours are full of shattered hopes, and pass
With ling’ring tortures, writhing in the mass
Of gloomy moods. I am no man of day,
Nor am I one the limpid night’s soft ray
Will fall upon to bless. No hour will claim
Me for time’s old companion. Yes, I shame
The ordinance of day, bright hours or dark,
One out of joint with all. The happy lark
Sings now no more for me. The flow’ring dell
No longer blooms as she with cup and bell
Once did. For there is gone from out my life,
My matchless queen, my joy, my fairy wife.
You gleam no more, and yet on wing you roam,
A firefly desolate, bereft of home
And hearth, where logs might burn and shine at night,
Upon the sweetest elf that did delight,
Beyond excelling, mortal soul and mind.
May you, poor, searching, Jack O’Lantern, find
The mistress of your fairy world in state.
Then come, and take me to the shining grate,
And I will bow allegiance, and renew
Love, fealty, and homage, there with you.