Part 16 (2/2)
Her strong heart hammered in her breast, As o'er a distant woody crest A dim gray plume of vapor trailed; And nearer, clearer, by and by, Like the faint echo of a cry, A warning whistle shrilled and wailed!
Her frightened gelding reared and plunged, As the doomed trestle rocked and lunged-- The keen lash scored his silken hide: ”Come, Bayard! We must reach the bridge And cross to yonder higher ridge-- For thrice an hundred lives we ride!”
She stooped and kissed his tawny mane, Sodden with flecks of froth and rain; Then put him at the surging flood!
Girth deep the dauntless gelding sank, The tide hissed round his smoking flank, But straight for life or death she rode!
The wide black heavens yawned again, Down came the torrent rus.h.i.+ng rain-- The icy river clutched her!
Shrill in her ears the waters sang, Strange fires from the abysses sprang, The sharp sleet stung like whip and spur!
Her yellow hair, blown wild and wide, Streamed like a meteor o'er the tide; Her set white face yet whiter grew, As lashed by furious flood and rain, Still for the bridge, with might and main, Her gallant horse swam, straight and true!
They gained the track, and slowly crept Timber by timber, torrents swept, Across the boiling h.e.l.l of water-- Till past the torn and shuddering bridge He bore her to the safer ridge, The engineer's intrepid daughter!
The night was falling wild and black, The waters blotted out the track; She gave her flying horse free rein, For full a dreadful mile away The lonely wayside station lay, And hoa.r.s.e above his startled neigh She heard the thunder of the train!
”What if they meet this side the goal?”
She thought with sick and shuddering soul; For well she knew what doom awaited A fell mischance--a step belated-- The grinding wheels, the yawning d.y.k.e-- Sure death for her--for them--alike!
Like danger-lamps her blue eyes glowed, As thro' the whirling gloom she rode, Her laboring breath drawn sharply in; Pitted against yon rus.h.i.+ng wheels Were tireless grit and trusty heels, And with G.o.d's favor they might win!
And soon along the perilous line Flamed out the lurid warning sign, While round her staggering horse the crowd Surged with wild cheers and plaudits loud.-- And this is how, thro' flood and rain, Brave Kate McCarthy saved the train!
OFF THE SKIDLOE.
With leagues of wasteful water ringed about, And wrapped in sheeted foam from base to peak, A sheer, stupendous monolith, wrought out By the slow, ceaseless labor of the deeps, In awful isolation, old as Time, The gray, forbidding Rock of Skidloe stands-- Breasting the wild incursions of the North-- The grim antagonist of a thousand waves!
Far to the leeward, faintly drawn against A dim perspective of perpetual storms, A frowning line of black basaltic cliffs Baffles the savage onset of the surf.
But, rolled in cloud and foam, old Skidloe lifts His dark, defiant head forever mid The shock and thunder of contending tides, And fixed, immovable as fate, hurls back The rude, eternal protest of the sea!
Colossal waters coil about his feet, Deep rooted in the awful gulfs between The measureless walls of mountain chains submerged; An infinite hoa.r.s.e murmur wells from all His dim mysterious crypts and corridors: The inarticulate mutterings that voice The ancient secret of the mighty main.
In all the troubled round of sea and air, No glimpse of brightness lends the vivid zest Of life and light to the harsh monotone Of gray tumultuous flood and spectral sky; Far off the black basaltic crags are heaved Against the desolate emptiness of s.p.a.ce; But no sweet beam of sunset ever falls Athwart old Skidloe's cloudy crest--no soft And wistful glory of awakened dawn Lays on his haggard brows a touch of grace.
Sometimes a lonely curlew skims across The seething torment of the dread abyss, And, shrieking, dips into the mist beyond; But, solitary and unchanged for aye, He towers amid the rude revolt of waves, His stony face seamed by a thousand years, And wrinkled with a million furrows, worn By the slow drip of briny tears, that creep Along his hollow cheek. His hidden hands Drag down the drowned and tossing wrecks that drive Before the fury of the Northern gales, And mute, inscrutable as destiny, He keeps his sombre secrets as of yore.
The slow years come and go; the seasons dawn And fade, and pa.s.s to swell the solemn ranks Of august ages in the march of Time.
But changeless still, amid eternal change, Old Skidloe bears the furious brunt of all The warring elements that grapple mid The mighty insurrections of the sea!
Gray desolation, ancient solitude, Brood o'er his wide, unrestful water world, While grim, unmoved, forbidding as of yore, He wraps his kingly alt.i.tudes about With the fierce blazon of the thunder cloud; And on his awful and uplifted brows The red phylactery of the lightning s.h.i.+nes; And throned amid eternal wars, he dwells, His dread regality hedged round by all The weird magnificence of exultant storms!
LIFE'S CROSSES.
”O life! O, vailed destiny!”
She cried--”within thy hidden hands What recompense is waiting me Beyond these naked wintry sands?
For lo! The ancient legend saith: 'Take ye a rose at Christmas tide, And pin thereto your loving faith, And cast it to the waters wide; Whate'er the wished-for guerdon be, G.o.d's hand will guide it safe to thee!'
”I pace the river's icy brink, This dreary Christmas Eve,” she said, ”And watch the dying sunset sink From pallid gold to ashen red.
My eyes are hot with weary tears, I heed not how the winds may blow, While thinking of the vanished years Beyond the stormy heave and throe Of yon far sea-line, dimly curled Around my lonely island-world.
”The winds make melancholy moan; I hear the river flowing by, As, heavy-hearted and alone, Beneath the wild December sky, I take the roses from my breast-- White roses of the Holy Rood-- And, filled with pa.s.sionate unrest, I cast them to the darkening flood.
O, roses, drifting out to sea, Bring my lost treasures back to me!
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