NPM: Of Fire and Flame

April is National Poetry Month. I intend to celebrate it by posting a poem every day. This one is by Margaret Cavendish (who wrote in 1653)

Of Fire and Flame

ALthough we at a distance stand; if great
The Fire be, the Body through will heat.
Yet those sharpe Atomes we do no perceive;
How they flye out nor how to us they cleave.
Nor do they flame, nor shine they cheere and bright,
When they flie out, and on our Bodies strike.
The reason is, they loose, and scattered flye.
And not in Troupes, not do they on heaps lye.
Like small dust rais'd, which scatter'd all about;
We see it not, nor doth it keep Light out:
When gathered thick up to a Mountaine high,
We see them thin in solid Earth to lye.
Just so do Atomes sharpe looke, cleere, and bright,
When in heaps lye, or in a streaming flight.