Fires in Illinois

How bright this weird autumnal eve-
    While the wild twilight clings around,
Clothing the grasses every-where,
    With scarce a dream of sound!

The high horizon's northern line,
    With many a silent-leaping spire,
Seems a dark shore-a sea of flame-
    Quick, crawling waves of fire!

I stand in dusky solitude,
    October breathing low and chill,
And watch the far-off blaze that leaps
    At the wind's wayward will.

These boundless fields, behold, once more,
    Sea-like in vanish'd summers stir;
From vanish'd autumns comes the Fire-
    A lone, bright harvester!

I see wide terror lit before-
    Wild steeds, fierce herds of bison here,
And, blown before the flying flame,
    The flying-footed deer!

Long trains (with shaken bells, that moved
    Along red twilights sinking slow)
Whose wheels grew weary on their way,
    Far westward, long ago;

Lone wagons bivouack'd in the blaze,
    That, long ago, stream'd wildly past;
Faces from that bright solitude
    In the hot gleam aghast!

A glare of faces like a dream,
    No history after or before,
Inside the horizon with the flames,
    The flames--nobody more!

The vision vanishes in me,
    Sudden and swift and fierce and bright;
Another gentler vision fills
    The solitude, to-night:

The horizon lightens every-where,
    The sunshine rocks on windy maize;
Hark, every-where are busy men,
    And children at their plays!

Far church-spires twinkle at the sun,
    From villages of quiet born,
And, far and near, and every-where,
    Homes stand amid the corn.

No longer driven by wind, the Fire
    Makes all the vast horizon glow,
But, numberless as the stars above,
    The windows shine below!