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    Fires - Book I The Stone, and Other Tales
    Fires - Book I The Stone, and Other Tales
    Fires - Book I The Stone, and Other Tales
    Ebook76 pages51 minutes

    Fires - Book I The Stone, and Other Tales

    By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

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    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Fires - Book I The Stone, and Other Tales

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      Book preview

      Fires - Book I The Stone, and Other Tales - Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

      FIRES - BOOK I

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.

      Title: Fires - Book I

      The Stone, and Other Tales

      Author: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

      Release Date: May 09, 2013 [EBook #42677]

      Language: English

      Character set encoding: UTF-8

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRES - BOOK I ***

      Produced by Al Haines.

      FIRES

      BOOK I

      THE STONE, AND OTHER TALES

      BY

      WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

      LONDON

      ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET

      M CM XII

      BY THE SAME WRITER

      DAILY BREAD (1910)

      WOMENKIND (1912)

      TO

      GEORGE CLAUSEN

      A TRIBUTE

      Snug in my easy chair,

      I stirred the fire to flame.

      Fantastically fair,

      The flickering fancies came.

      Born of hearts desire:

      Amber woodland streaming;

      Topaz islands dreaming;

      Sunset-cities gleaming,

      Spire on burning spire;

      Ruddy-windowed taverns;

      Sunshine-spilling wines;

      Crystal-lighted caverns

      Of Golconda's mines;

      Summers, unreturning;

      Passion's crater yearning;

      Troy, the ever-burning;

      Shelley's lustral pyre;

      Dragon-eyes, unsleeping;

      Witches' cauldrons leaping;

      Golden galleys sweeping

      Out from sea-walled Tyre:

      Fancies, fugitive and fair,

      Flashed with singing through the air;

      Till, dazzled by the drowsy glare,

      I shut my eyes to heat and light;

      And saw, in sudden night,

      Crouched in the dripping dark,

      With steaming shoulders stark,

      The man who hews the coal to feed my fire.

      CONTENTS

      The Stone

      The Wife

      The Machine

      The Lodestar

      The Shop

      Flannan Isle

      The Brothers

      The Blind Rower

      The Flute

      Thanks are due to the editors of THE ENGLISH REVIEW, THE POETRY REVIEW and THE SPECTATOR for leave to reprint some of these tales.

      FIRES

      THE STONE

      "And will you cut a stone for him,

      To set above his head?

      And will you cut a stone for him--

      A stone for him?" she said.

      Three days before, a splintered rock

      Had struck her lover dead--

      Had struck him in the quarry dead,

      Where, careless of the warning call,

      He loitered, while the shot was fired--

      A lively stripling, brave and tall,

      And sure of all his heart desired...

      A flash, a shock,

      A rumbling fall...

      And, broken 'neath the broken rock,

      A lifeless heap, with face of clay,

      And still as any stone he lay,

      With eyes that saw the end of all.

      I went to break the news to her:

      And I could hear my own heart beat

      With dread of what my lips might say

      But, some poor fool had sped before;

      And, flinging wide her father's door,

      Had blurted out the news to her,

      Had struck her lover dead for her,

      Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,

      Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,

      And dropped it at her feet:

      Then hurried on his witless way,

      Scarce knowing she had heard.

      And when I came, she stood, alone

      A woman, turned to stone:

      And, though no word at all she said,

      I knew that all was known.

      Because her heart was dead,

      She did not sigh nor moan,

      His mother wept:

      She could not weep.

      Her lover slept:

      She could not sleep.

      Three days, three nights,

      She did not stir:

      Three days, three nights,

      Were one to her,

      Who never closed her eyes

      From sunset to sunrise,

      From dawn to evenfall:

      Her tearless, staring eyes,

      That, seeing naught, saw all.

      The fourth night when I came from work,

      I found her at my door.

      And will you cut a stone for him?

      She said: and spoke no more:

      But followed me, as I went in,

      And sank upon a chair;

      And fixed her grey eyes on my face,

      With still, unseeing stare.

      And, as she waited patiently,

      I could not bear to feel

      Those still, grey eyes that followed me,

      Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,

      Those eyes that sucked the breath from me

      And curdled the warm blood in me,

      Those eyes that cut me to the bone,

      And pierced my marrow like cold steel.

      And so I rose, and sought a stone;

      And cut it, smooth and square:

      And, as I worked, she sat and watched,

      Beside me, in her chair.

      Night

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