Five Hymns: Hymn to Fire

Enjoy this reading of the poem Hymn to Fire, part of the Five hymns series by Quivaylan Soth (Michael Williams), the Bard of Ansalon. This poem first appeared in The History of Dragonlance: Being the Notes, Journals, and Memorabilia of Krynn, released on June 1st, 1995. Buy The History of Dragonlance: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/197643/The-History-of-Dragonlance-2e?affiliate_id=50797

Five Hymns: Hymn to Fire

The constellations are a wheel of fire

     Fire on fire interlinking

In all the great machineries of heaven,

     The sun, the revolving moons,

And looking up into the work of hands,

     Into the gods’ contraption

Where night descends like clockwork, like the play

     And tumult of devices,

Presents an intricate philosophy

     A nature rapt by numbers.

Oh, do not tell us that the gods’ first faces

     Were simple and profound.

It is a fiction of the human year

     A winter maintaining that

We strip away all glitter, all device

     The intricate bells and whistles

And underneath them all, there lie the gods.

     Divinity is intricate

The blue corona on the lip of flame

     The jeweler’s gear enmeshed

With instruments of joy, with steam and powder.

     Love is an intricate engine,

Moving and unmoved, it scatters fire

     Over mandala and zodiac

It scatters fire into the fallow night,

Each whistle and each bell, each clang and clatter

     The heart’s theology.

So let the hymn, like well-considered incense

     Rise on a draft of air,

Let blueprint of the mechanism fade

     And torque and velocity dwindle,

We are the ones who fashion these, our hands

     Limned and mortal in days.

Let hymns ignite upon the edge of stars,

     Let them wheel and intertwine,

Creating elaborate music in the sky,

High above Nevermind and our devices,

And then in fashioned daylight we will voyage

Past sun and stars into the source of light.

Scroll to Top