Poetry Revisited: Sitting by the Fire by Henry Kendall

Sitting by the Fire

(from Poems and Songs: 1862)

Ah! the solace in the sitting,
          Sitting by the fire,
When the wind without is calling
And the fourfold clouds are falling,
With the rain-racks intermitting,
          Over slope and spire.
Ah! the solace in the sitting,
          Sitting by the fire.

Then, and then, a man may ponder,
          Sitting by the fire,
Over fair far days, and faces
Shining in sweet-coloured places
Ere the thunder broke asunder
          Life and dear Desire.
Thus, and thus, a man may ponder,
          Sitting by the fire.

Waifs of song pursue, perplex me,
          Sitting by the fire:
Just a note, and lo, the change then!
Like a child, I turn and range then,
Till a shadow starts to vex me –
          Passion's wasted pyre.
So do songs pursue, perplex me,
          Sitting by the fire.

Night by night – the old, old story –
          Sitting by the fire,
Night by night, the dead leaves grieve me:
Ah! the touch when youth shall leave me,
Like my fathers, shrunken, hoary,
          With the years that tire.
Night by night – that old, old story,
          Sitting by the fire.

Sing for slumber, sister Clara,
          Sitting by the fire.
I could hide my head and sleep now,
Far from those who laugh and weep now,
Like a trammelled, faint wayfarer,
          'Neath yon mountain-spire.
Sing for slumber, sister Clara,
          Sitting by the fire.

Henry Kendall (1839-1882)
Australian author and bush poet