She is a thing of fire, and I am a thing of snow;
And ever she hails me to her with a passionate call and low --
For she is a thing of fire, and I am a thing of snow!
The lights in the camps of savage men
Are deep in her mystic eyes;
Or in desert place under midnight skies
Gleam and glitter of wild beast eyes
Corpse lights flaring in some still glen
Where the ambushed wolf pack lies.
She draws me to her as fireflies draw
Their mates from the tree-trunks' gloom --
For the ice to the south is the polar law,
And the green bergs melt in the blue sea's maw,
And are lost in the wide salt room.
Red is her mouth as a coal, and rare as a jewel's glow;
When she beckons, I must arise and take my staff and go,
Though it be Love or Death, the call -- the call of fire to snow!
First published in The Sydney Mail, 27 August 1919
