Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/335

THE FRESHET Toward the promontory where we stood,

Nor saw the death, nor seemed to hear the cry.

''Run George! run Lucy!'' shouted all at once;

Too late, too late! for, with resistless crash,

Against both piers that mighty ruin lay

A space that seemed an hour, yet far too short

For rescue. Swaying slowly back and forth,

With ponderous tumult, all the bridge went off;

Piers, beams, planks, railings snapped their groaning ties

And fell asunder!

But the middle part,

Wrought with great bolts of iron, like a raft

Held out awhile, whirled onward in the wreck

This way and that, and washed with freezing spray.

Faster than I can tell you, it came down

Beyond our point, and in a flash we saw

George, on his knees, close-clinging for dear life,

One arm around the remnant of the rail,

One clasping Lucy. We were pale as they,

Powerless to save; but even as they swept

Across the bend, and twenty stalwart men

Ran to and fro with clamor for A rope!

A boat!—their cries together reached the shore;

''Save her! Save him!''—so true Love conquers all.

Furlongs below they still more closely held

Each other, 'mid a thousand shocks of ice

And seething horrors; till, at last, the end

Came, where the river, scornful of its bed,

Struck a new channel, roaring through the grove.

There, dashed against a naked beech that stood

Grimly in front, their shattered raft gave up

Its precious charge; and then a mist of tears

Blinded all eyes, through which we seemed to see

Two forms in death-clasp whirled along the flood,

And all was over.

305