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.