Nate the great told many a horrific short story,
this particular one though, not as gory.
'Twas about a great bonfire of his own vanity,
in a tale he ignited with damned Infernal humanity.
The time and place, were are told, both shrouded in haze,
and specifically irrelevant for recounting this great blaze.
So, a weary traveler espies, this intense glowing light,
and is drawn to it, like a moth, blind to personable fright.
Haze of dust and soot circle the pit of this mad pyro place.
Heaps piling up all that remains is a cremated odorous trace.
The materials we collect, amass and one stashes
for later, for greed not need, is reduced to mere ashes.
Both receipts of binding debts and bombast assets-
Both conceits of boastful pride and bashful regrets-
An inquisitive observer, a ticking watch-man,
A weaver of words, the nightmares of Nathan,
Who dreamt of books burning,
seeking his own with yearning.
Everything and All goes on to the raging pyre!
Cauterizing people from their acquired mire!
Stoking and invoking 'The Fire Sermon',
Recalling amnesia through an act of arson,
Smelting the ore of material need,
Any need reduced to basic greed.
This episodic dream penned as Hawthorne's parable,
A rhapsodic rant, worthy of Kant, was truly not so terrible.
With a glimmer of phosphoric radiance,
Reason, Philanthropy, Philosophic brilliance.
And any little idiosyncratic whim Nathaniel should desire,
Nonchalantly gets thrown into the 'Earths Holocaustic' bonfire.
Image of painting by Peder Severin Krøyer [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "Midsummer Eve, Bonfire on Skagen's Beach" (1906).
