Page 134 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

I dashed at the door in fury, shrieking, u T will not die 1
D:s in this burning prison !” — hut I caught no answering cry.
Then, suddenly, right upon me the flames crcpt up v fith a roar,
And their fiery tongues shot forward, cracking ray prison door.

T was free— with the heavy iron door dragging rne down to death;
T fought ray way to the cabin, choked with the burning breath
Of the flames that danced around me like mad, mocking fiends at play.
A n d then— 0 God ! I can see it, and shall to my dying day.

T h ere lay m y Nell as they’d left her dead in her berth that night;
The flames flung a smile on her features,— a horrible, lurid light,
God knows how I reached and touched her, but I found myself by
her side;
I thought she was living a moment, I forgot that m y Nell had died.

In the shock o f those awful seconds reason came back to my brain.
1 heard a sound as o f breathing, and then a low cry of pain ;
Oh, was there mercy in heaven ? W as there a God in the skies?
The dead woman’s Ups were moving, the dead woman opened her eyes.

I cursed like a madman raving— -I cried to her, “ Nell J my Nell J”
They had left us alone and hdpless, alone in that burning hell;
They had left us alone to perish— forgotten me living— and she
H ad been left for the fire to bear her to heaven, instead of tlie sea.

T clutched her, roused her shrieking, the stupor was on her still;
I seized her in spite o f my fetters,— fear gave me a giant’s will.
God knows how I did it, but blindly 1 fought through tlie flames and
the wreck
U p—-up to the air, and brought her safe to the untouched deck.

W e'd a moment c f life together,— a moment o f life, the time
Kor one last word to each other,— ’twas a moment supreme, sublime,
frorn the trance we'd for death mistaken the heat had brought her to life,
A n d I fettered and helpless, so we lay there, husband and wife I