Who Lights The Fire?
by
Who lights the fire–that forth so gracefully
And freely frolicketh the fairy smoke?
Some pretty one who never felt the yoke–
Glad girl, or maiden more sedate than she.
Pedant it cannot, villain cannot be!
Some genius, may-be, his own symbol woke;
But puritan, nor rogue in virtue’s cloke,
Nor kitchen-maid has done it certainly!
Ha, ha! you cannot find the lighter out
For all the blue smoke’s pantomimic gesture–
His name or nature, sex or age or vesture!
The fire was lit by human care, no doubt–
But now the smoke is Nature’s tributary,
Dancing ‘twixt man and nothing like a fairy.