While the mist is on the river
And the moon is on the hill,
And the stars above us quiver
And the woods below are still,
Down the valley Fireflies rally, —
Millions throbbing rhythmically
All the mellowed darkness fill.
Where the vapor’s subtler edges
Creep from out the darkened swale,
All the long leaves of the sedges
Wave their cressets misty-pale,
Rocking slowly, like the holy
Levites’ censers o’er the lowly
Worshippers before the veil!
Flash along the woodland shadows
Tiny lightnings, spark by spark,
As if over all the meadows
Heaven were sowing the void dark
With to-morrow’s gold, that borrows
Bloom from midnight’s dusky furrows,
As wild-flowers from fallows stark.
Is the Fairy King returning
From his royal Grand Review?
And are these the torches burning
In his splendid retinue?
Through the vapors cleave their tapers
As if, charging with drawn ?,
Their fleet troop rode down the blue.
Close above us breaks a gleaming
With a fitful line of light,
Yet far off as Lyra, seeming
In the mystery of the night!
And from under breathes our wonder,
‘What a meteor rushes yonder
Lawless, in that awful height!’
Nearer, what a weird inurning
Of some strange innocuous blaze,
A pale emerald inly burning
Or translucent chrysoprase;
Winged and living jewels, giving
Light for others, and receiving
Not their own but kindred rays.
* * *
Every soul that lives for duty
Mindless of the moment’s fame,
Sheds irradiant truth and beauty, —
Stars of earth or heaven the same, —
Not to blind us, burns behind us,
The true glory if it find us,
Like the fire-fly’s mystic flame.
Fire-Flies