Page 208 - 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 ...

One infant— one, awful and only,
The wo lie flew round :n my brain,
And 1 'mote my hand hard on my forehead
To keep back the teiribie pair ;
The train I thought flying forever,
With mad ir resist ibis roli,
While the cries of the: cyiiu;, i ho ni«\'it wind
Swept iiito my shuddering so id.

Then I ?tood on the Pont of tlitj engine—
ffow I <j oL: there I never eoah.: tell—
My feet planted down on 111o crossbar,
Where the cow-catcher slopes tu tin: rail,
One band firmly lacked on the coupler,
And one held ov.t in the night.
While my eye geared Li11' distance and measured,
The speed of our slackening iagla

My mind, thank the Lord ! ;r was steady;
I iavv hn.: e.uls of he i hair
And the face Lhat, turning in wonder,
W a s -it bv the deadly glaie.
I know little more-— but .1 heard it—
The v;r:iE_n of the anguished wheels.
And remember thinking—the engine
In agony trembles iiltd reels,

One rod ! To tin; day of my dying
i shah think: the old engine reared back,.
And as it recoiled, with a shudder
I swept my hand over the track ;
Then darkness fed over my eyelids,
But I heard the sn-^e of the train,
■T?
And - he poor old engine creaking,
As racked by a deadly pain.