Page 98 - 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 ...

KATE SH E L L Y.

H A V E you heard how a girl saved tlie lightning express,—
O f Kate Shelly, whose father was killed on the road ?
W ere l:e living to-day, he’d be proud lo possess
Such a daughter as Kale, A h J ’twas grit that she showed
On that terrible evening when Dona h u es train
Jumped the bridge fine! went down, in the darkness and rah.
She wns only eighteen, but a woman in size,
With a vigare as graceful and lithe as a doe ;
W ith peach-biossom cheeks, and with violet eyes,
A n d teeth i:nd complexion like new-fallen snow ;
With a nature unspoiled and unblemished by arl—
With a generous soul, and a warm, noble heart!

’Tis evening— the darkness is dense and profound ;
Mf:n linger at hom e by their bright-blazing fires ;
The wind wildly howls with a horrible sound.
And shrieks through the vibrating telegraph wires;
The fierce lightning flashes aiong the dark sky ;
The rain falls in torrents ; the river rolls by.

The scream o f .a whistle [ the rush o f a train 1
The sound o f a bell! a mysterious light
That flashes a:id flares through the fast falling rain!
A rumble! a roar 1 shrieks o f human affright!
The falling o f timbers ! f.he space o f a breath I
A. splash in the river! then darkness and death!

Kate Shelly recoils at the terrible crash ;
Tlie sounds o f destruction she happens to hear;
She springs to the window— she throws up the sash.
And listens and looks with a feeling o f fear.
The tall tree-tops groan, and she hears the faint cry
Q f a drowning man down in the river near by.