The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (1.1894)

Two Poems

By Edmund Gosse

I—Alere Flammam
To A. C. B.

In ancient Rome, the secret fire,—
An intimate and holy thing,—
Was guarded by a tender choir

Of kindred maidens in a ring ;
Deep, deep within the house it lay,
No stranger ever gazed thereon,
But, flickering still by night and day,
The beacon of the house, it shone ;
Thro' birth and death, from age to age,
It passed, a quenchless heritage ;

And there were hymns of mystic tone

Sung round about the family flame,
Beyond the threshold all unknown,

Fast-welded to an ancient name ;
There sacrificed the sire as priest,

Before that altar, none but he,

Alonc