I arise and pass.

* * * * *

An unfinished house standing at the edge of a field is burning—and the roof has caught first.

One vast sheet of flame ascends spiral in the night, and casts its glare upon thousands of faces in the street and fields below.

* * * * *

Lo! the wonderful colors of the flame! The pitchy night above; the dazzling white and red mixed with the greens and blue-greens of the burning metals; and the great twisted column of tawny smoke, with red sparkles flying on the wind.

Lo! the strange light cast upon the wall of full-foliaged elms; and far more wonderful than all, at their feet, the crowd of living faces—

The mad pushing sweating crowd, the flushed eager faces—dominated all, controlled and riveted by that flaming sign.

* * * * *

Holy! holy! holy!

Night and flame, night and flame, entering in! entering (O arched wonder of many eyes!) through the visible into the invisible—

* * * * *

Holy! holy! holy!

Night and flame entering in (and one with you, treading softly through the myriad marvelous chambers)—

* * * * *

To dwell; to dwell for months, years; to transfuse, enlarge, to touch with wonder, ardor, exultation; to be remembered afterwards, years and years perhaps, upon his bed, by that child there: the jets of flame through the roof, the strange wreathing smoke, the solemn dark of the sky, the bravery of the firemen, the thrill of the falling timbers; to mix with the yearnings of the growing lonely boy, to be a strange symbol burning in his heart; to fire the slumbering train (in some compressed girl-soul) of adventurous resolve; to mingle with the fears of motherhood;

At last to merge and become indistinguishable—in each one of these to merge, night and flame!—leaving out not one.

* * * * *

Holy! holy! holy!

And lo! the crowd still standing.

* * * * *

And now out of all two alone.

By the curbstone, in the forefront of the crowd, a man—a navvy—with his hands clasped in front of him on the breast of his little son!

The boy, timid, standing between his father’s feet, pressing back against his legs, with his own little hands the great hands clasping;

The two, equal childlike, with parallel upward eyes by the flame riveted,

Their rapt unconscious demeanor, the strong likeness between them,

And the meanings, apart, which the wonderful roaring gesticulating flame in the night signifies secretly to each.