THE GOOD OLD FIREPLACE

          You can have you modern ranges with your nickel plate and all,

          Their storage hot and storage cold, their ovens grand and small;

          Their time-clocks and their “handys” and their ornaments in fine,

          You can have them, I was saying, but I don’t like them in mine.

          Give me just a wide old fireplace that is deep and long and high,

          That will take a stick of cordwood from the forest handy by,

          And a fire that’s bright and cheery, throwing out a wave of heat;

          Though it’s crude and called old fashioned I’ll be bound it can’t be beat.

          People used to be more healthy when they lived a slower gait,

          When their food and drink were simple and their hours weren’t late;

          When they gathered round the fireplace in the winter evening long

          Where they heard the fairy story and the good old folk-lore song.

          O the comfort of the fireplace when the logs are burning bright!

          And the pictures you can fancy in the embers’ glowing light.

          There is nothing complicated in the running of the thing,

          And it can’t get out of order like my furnace does, I jing!

July 30, ‘06