The Log Fire

In her last hour of life the tree
Gave up her glorious memories,
Wild scent of wood anemone,
The sapphire blue of April skies.

With faint but ever-strength'ning flame,
The dew-drenched hyacinthine spires
Were lost, as red-gold bracken came,
With maple bathed in living fires.

Grey smoke of ancient clematis
Towards the silver birch inclined,
And deep in thorny fastnesses
The coral bryony entwined.

Then softly through the dusky room
They strayed, fair ghosts of other days,
With breath like early cherry bloom,
With tender eyes and gentle ways.

They glimmered on the sombre walls,
They danced upon the oaken floor,
Till through the loudly silent halls
Joy reigned majestical once more.

Up blazed the fire, and, dazzling clear,
One rapturous Spirit radiant stood.
'Twas you at last! Yes, YOU, my dear.
We two were back in Gatcombe Wood!

Fay Inchfawn

Fay Inchfawn was the pen name of Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, a prolific British author and poet born in 1880. She published a variety of works, including poetry, essays, and books on homemaking, and was known for her cheerful, optimistic writing style. Her works often focused on domestic life and faith, resonating particularly with female readers in the early to mid-20th century. Beyond her literary output, little is widely known about her personal life. Fay Inchfawn passed away in 1978.

Fay Inchfawn

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English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

On All Souls' Eve

Oh, the garden ways are lonely!
Winds that bluster, winds that shout,
Battle with the strong laburnum,
Toss the sad brown leaves about.
In the gay herbaceous border,
Now a scene of wild disorder,
The last dear hollyhock has flamed his
crimson glory out.

Yet, upon this night of longing,
Souls are all abroad, they say.
Will they come, the dazzling blossoms,
That were here but yesterday?
Will the ghosts of radiant roses
And my sheltered lily-closes
Hold once more their shattered fragrance
now November's on her way?

Wallflowers, surely you'll remember,
Pinks, recall it, will you not?
How I loved and watched and tended,
Made this ground a hallowed spot:
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A November Wood-Walk.

Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks;
    Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet,
    Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet;
    And whereso'er thy musing foot is set,
The fragrant cool-wort lifts its emerald stalks.

How kindly nature wraps secure and warm,
    In the fallen mantle of her summer pride,
    These lovely tender things that peep and hide,
    Whom unawares thy curious eye hath spied,
For the long night of winter's frost and storm.

Still keeps the deer-berry its vivid green,
    Set in its glowing calyx like a gem;
    While hung above, a marvellous diadem
    Of tawny gold, the bittersweet's gray stem,
Strung with its globes of murky flame is seen.

The foot sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss,
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Kate Seymour Maclean

Logs On The Hearth

A Memory Of A Sister



The fire advances along the log
Of the tree we felled,
Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peck
Till its last hour of bearing knelled.

The fork that first my hand would reach
And then my foot
In climbings upward inch by inch, lies now
Sawn, sapless, darkening with soot.

Where the bark chars is where, one year,
It was pruned, and bled -
Then overgrew the wound. But now, at last,
Its growings all have stagnated.

My fellow-climber rises dim
From her chilly grave -
Just as she was, her foot near mine on the bending limb,
Laughing, her young brown hand awave.

December 1915.

Thomas Hardy

Our Canadian Woods In Early Autumn.

I have passed the day 'mid the forest gay,
    In its gorgeous autumn dyes,
Its tints as bright and as fair to the sight
    As the hues of our sunset skies;
And the sun's glad rays veiled by golden haze,
    Streamed down 'neath its arches grand,
And with magic power made scene and hour
    Like a dream of Faerie Land.

The emerald sheen of the maple green
    Is turned to deep, rich red;
And the boughs entwine with the crimson vine
    That is climbing overhead;
While, like golden sheaves, the saffron leaves
    Of the sycamore strew the ground,
'Neath birches old, clad in shimmering gold,
    Or the ash with red berries crowned.

Stately and tall, o'er its sisters all,
    Stands the poplar, proud and lone,
Every silvery leaf in restless...

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

A Forest Idyl

I.

Beneath an old beech-tree
They sat together,
Fair as a flower was she
Of summer weather.
They spoke of life and love,
While, through the boughs above,
The sunlight, like a dove,
Dropped many a feather.

II.

And there the violet,
The bluet near it,
Made blurs of azure wet
As if some spirit,
Or woodland dream, had gone
Sprinkling the earth with dawn,
When only Fay and Faun
Could see or hear it.

III.

She with her young, sweet face
And eyes gray-beaming,
Made of that forest place
A spot for dreaming:
A spot for Oreads
To smooth their nut-brown braids,
For Dryads of the glades
To dance in, gleaming.

IV.

So dim the place, so blest,
One had not wondered
H...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Old Ash Tree.

Thou beautiful Ash! thou art lowly laid,
    And my eyes shall hail no more
From afar thy cool and refreshing shade,
    When the toilsome journey's o'er.
The winged and the wandering tribes of air
    A home 'mid thy foliage found,
But thy graceful boughs, all broken and bare,
    The wild winds are scattering round.

The storm-demon sent up his loudest shout
    When he levelled his bolt at thee,
When thy massy trunk and thy branches stout
    Were riven by the blast, old tree!
It has bowed to the dust thy stately form,
    Which for many an age defied
The rush and the roar of the midnight storm,
    When it swept through thy branches wide.

I have gazed on thee with a fond delight
    In childhood's happier day,
And watched the moonbeams...

Susanna Moodie