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Sarah A. Heinzerling
When fires are burning brightly,
And good friends gather nightly
Around the cheerful blaze ;
The songs they sing are lusty—
The tales they tell are gusty
And full of camping praise.
But when the fire is smoky,
The crowd is cross and poky,
And will not be amused ;
Then, songs are always flat,
And friends begin to spat
And feel themselves abused.
With eye-lids red and smarty,
They name the campfire party
As man has done before ;
And go home quoting loudly,
An involvement in the world as its own
That characterizes crows, jays
And the present in its presence raven
Also is the mood of the whiskey jack;
Little red crumb of a bird
With a crest and legs thinner than matches ...
He's there before you know he is
To the campfire in a cedar glade
Where the forest is dark as its sighs
With his moves quick as fingers
Snapping, certain as a seamstress’ hand
With you not the target of its eyes,
Though any nutritious fragment
You might drop by accident or chummy purpose is ...
And yet the whiskey jack is company:
However small the heart a fine lesson.