Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/132

128

A wanderer from the wave A sailor marked her woe, And in his feeling bosom woke The sympathetic glow, Quick up the cleaving stairs, With daring step he flew, Though sable clouds of stifling smoke Concealed him from the view;

Loud was the admiring voice, Yet mix'd with shuddering fear, For him, who nobly risk'd his life, Mov'd by a stranger's tear; The blazing timbers fell Across his dangerous road, And the far chamber where he groped, Like reeking oven glow'd.

How high the exulting shout! When from that mass of flame, Unhurt, unshrinking, undismayed, The brave deliverer came,