In the dark depths of forests eternal,
where the steep and gray rock face presides
where the dizzying infinite heather,
and the silent days softly reside,
there, the burning hot fermenting log-fire
makes a bonfire volcanic with dust
and from hundreds of crevices tiny
its gray smoke rises high to the sky.

All around it a guard, black, nocturnal
with eyes blaring porcelain white.
He perspires and battles his hunger
In his bouts with the wintertime nights.

Every fire that burns is fire,
even hidden as if it were dead,
every fire is truly fire,
even when it is not flaming red.

Still it glows down below,
burning in the ravine,
just to appear as flames,
at night when unseen.

Thus does glow, thus does burn
our hate and hope for earthly goods,
the gentle smoke plumes rising
and resting on the still woods.

Thus rise the hidden folk tunes
out of earth and out of fire,
to wend their way all dreamily
o’er the scraggly mountain gyre.

It is naught but smoke, it is traces
of a spirit aroused to the core –
it is gray, it is doused,
it has vanished, it is log-fire smoke – but nothing more.