Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/433

Rh But the sharp, quick sounds that startle proclaim not anger but mercy.

For now, like winds and thunders, flash by the glittering engines,

And the wagons, with ladders and axes, laden with well-trained men

Eager to quench the flame, to scale the dangerous battlements;

Eager to risk their lives in the hissing blaze and the smoke

That blinds, and that grips the throat like the throttling hand of murder.

III

On come the engines and wagons, and the Chief in his hooting chariot,

And a boy, who hears them careering, rushes out to the crossing of ways,

And, swinging his arms and shouting, clears a path for the shrieking engine,

That rushes like winds and thunders down a vale of death and destruction—

And every man, at his post, on the winds of the human tempest,

Mad for the saving of lives of men and of women and children—

To creep to the edge of death, to swing in dizzying chasms,

To save the children of strangers, forgetting their own in their madness;

And then if a comrade fall, how wild each man to the rescue,

Plunging into the pit, poisoned, choked, unconscious;

Revived, they struggle back 'gainst their officers' yelled commandings—

Mad, mad, mad, for the saving of human life.