Ode to Burning

On fire, in fire, against the burning night
    We saw the angry orange glow of flames
That ate to sticks a spire's tumbled height
   Then rumbled down to ruined jumbled frames
Of vaulted tower crumbled into sparks
   Then heard the cries of desperate, fleeing larks.

And rain, the rain, that came and washed the street
   And pushed ahead a thousand hurried feet
To shelter amid monuments to heat
   And melted plastic lakes on wet concrete
That gives us all a reason not to tweet
   Destruction and debris in piles so neat.

Samuel Pepys, English parliamentarian and diarist, was born today in 1633.

John Keats, English romantic poet, died today in 1821.