Poem: The Fire

The words to this poem were put to a melody also composed by Chrissy, and the song made her the winner of the Mercian Gathering 2006's Bardic contest.

One night of cold winter
In the youth of the year
A young man sat weeping
For the darkness and fear.
'Oh my life it is empty
And crumbles apart,
For there is no flame in
My hearth or my heart.'

Oh in the hearth ashes
Of Midwinter's wood
Lay cold and grey and lifeless
And come to no good.
He sat in the bare room,
His head in his hands
And mourned like a widow
For the death of the Land.

Then up from the ashes
Rose the Goddess of Fire,
In her one hand a bright flame,
In the other a lyre.
She was gentle and frightening,
She was red and white,
And his heart filled with lightning
As well as with light.

'Take my hand, take my hand,'
Said the Lady of Light,
'I will show you the nature
Of fire this night.'
He did as she bid him,
His room disappeared.
What followed, none believed:
It was faery magic weird...

They stood on a bleak plain
In midnight full dark.
The stars were like pinpricks
And all around sparks
From festival bonfires
Flew through the chill air
And lit on the Goddess
And burned in her hair,

She said, 'It is winter
But the fires still burn
At Imbolc when the white world
Burns for life's return.
From bright spring to summer
To autumn's broad yield
To winter, the fire burns
Though it be concealed.'

'Burn fire in the belly,
Burn fire in the head,
Burn fire in the dark night
And fire in the bed.
Shine light of the candle,
The Sun and the Moon,
Burn flame of the force
To transform and consume.'

'For fire is the life-force
That runs in the blood,
That seals wounds that hinder
That forged man from mud.
It's lightning and thunder,
The flame 'neath the pan,
The dragon at the Earth's core,
Sustainer of Man.'

'And if you think stars
Are just pinpricks in night
Then you are mistaken.
I tell you their light
Is fire of millenia
Lost in the past
That travels through worlds
To reach you at last.'

And then she was gone
And his room was restored
But deep in his blood
A fire still roared,
And there in the hearth-space
Where the flame long had died
A fire burnt warmly
And bright as fair Brighid.

He said, 'Thank you my Lady
For all you have shown,
For the fire that remains
And the fire that has grown.
Anointed, I rise now
And take up my part
In tending the flame
In my hearth and my heart.'