A fire, they said, blazing red
    Had eaten whole a house
And there, there was a husband, dead
    Who cried over his spouse
“Twas on a cold, dead winter’s night,”
    He sang, o plaintively:
“A red, tall fire, had blazed bright
    Eating twas all to see

I heard my wife’s most pleading cry
    Drowned out by outer noise
She screamed, ‘neath metal she did lie
    “Go save, just save our boys!”
Her frightened eyes ablaze with fear
    She tried to writhe out free
But she was trapped, the fires neared
    In her captivity

And red sparks flew, she screamed, “John, John!
    Help me, help me, o please”
Through the flames, quick I did run
    From where sprang her shrill pleas
And as I dodged through searing flame
    A beast tearing apart
Something in a cold twist of pain
    Gripped all my frightened heart

Her scream as her the flames did eat
    Raw, black and savaged flesh
“O, help me John!” my tears did meet
    The flames,
“O, where are you, where are you Jane
    O, I managed to yell
But all that answered was the pain
    These crimson tides of hell

And then all fell silent except
    The crackling flame’s fury
And that shrill voice inside my head
    “Go save the boys,” her plea
I searched around the debris bare
    Aflame with savage blaze
And to my dark, my cold despair


And all I heard again, again
    Her plead, her cry, her voice
You’re their father, you’re that man
    “Go save, go save our boys!”
But then somewhere, I heard the cries
    Of the twins, tis too late
I ran, I ran, the flames did rise
    And nothing did abate

And I ran into my sons’ room
    And there I found to dread
Befallen on them blackest doom
    For they were burned, were dead
I flooded up in sad tears, white
    And with grief, fall did I
For all to this fire at night
    My memories did die

And now I stand, I sing forlorn
    O’er my family, dead
In plaintive elegies, I mourn
    I kiss each of their head
And though that fire changed my life
    Live I shall continue
In death with my twins and my wife
    In a life, anew…