C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Ebenezer Jones (1820–1860)

WHEN the world is burning,

Fired within, yet turning

Round with face unscathed;

Ere fierce flames, uprushing,

O’er all lands leap, crushing,

Till earth fall, fire-swathed,—

Up amidst the meadows,

Gently through the shadows,

Gentle flames will glide,

Small and blue and golden.

Though by bard beholden

When in calm dreams folden,

Calm his dreams will bide.

Where the dance is sweeping,

Through the greensward peeping,

Shall the soft lights start;

Laughing maids, unstaying,

Deeming it trick-playing,

High their robes upswaying,

O’er the lights shall dart;

And the woodland haunter

Shall not cease to saunter,

When far down some glade

Of the great world’s burning,

One soft flame upturning

Seems, to his discerning,

Crocus in the shade.