That living lantern of the summer night,
That animated torch, the firefly,
A zigzag streak of vital light, goes by,
Himself the luminous torch of his own flight,
Making the odorous darkness dimly bright:
A star, he seems, like to the stars on high,
Making the meadow like another sky,—
A winged star of self-re11ewing light.
Strong is the soul that in the meadow land
In midnight hours when the envenomed dark
Enrobes the spirit with its heavy gloom,
Can, like the firefly, its wings expand
And light with its own self-engendered spark,
Self-luminant, the midnight of its doom.
