Old Faces in the Fire [poem by Kenneth Mackay]

[Editor: This poem by Kenneth Mackay was published in Stirrup Jingles from the Bush and the Turf and Other Rhymes (1887).]

Old Faces in the Fire.

How often in the eventide,
When sitting by the fire,
The forms of dear ones who have died
Rise from the glowing pyre;
And faces of an earlier day
Look up amid the flame,
As those, who now have gone for aye,
Appear to us again.

We seem to have reunion, then,
With younger hopes and fears,
With women true, and trusted men,
Our friends of dear dead years;
While all the past again is bright,
And robed in rich attire;
Thus watching on a winter’s night
Old faces in the fire.

Source:
Kenneth Mackay, Stirrup Jingles from the Bush and the Turf and Other Rhymes, Sydney: Edwards, Dunlop & Co., 1887, page 68

Editor’s notes:
aye = always, forever

eventide = (archaic) evening