Page:The Fall of the Alamo.djvu/211

 [Advancing to the altar.] Thou jestest, friend—it cannot be—but, ah! It must be true—who is this handsome maiden? 'T is Elsie Bradburn, my heroic bride. [Pointing in great surprise at James Travis.] And who is this I am I awake or dreaming? James Travis, thou? my youthful, gallant friend. The fear for whose imperiled fate has wrung The first right-fervid prayer I e'er in life Have uttered, from my anxious bosom's shrine. But speak! declare to me the riddle, how Thou hast escaped the tyrant's tiger-claws And comest here, I know not, through the air Or from the, ground, albeit we saw thee not. Hast ever thou, amid thy many feats Of danger, as I well surmise, been saved From out the very jaws of direst death By wondrous, providential interference, To fathom which thy mind proved impotent? If had thy fancy's eye on such occasion Attired thy intercessor with the brightest hues Of Heaven and Earth, of Morn and Evening-sky,—