One instant,—one, awful and only,
The world flew round in my brain,
And I smote my hand hard on my forehead
To keep back the terrible pain;
The train I thought flying forever,
With mad, irresistible roll,
While the cries of the dying, the night-wind
Swept into my shuddering soul.
Then I stood on the front of the engine—
How I got there I never could tell—
My feet planted down on the crossbar,
Where the cow-catcher slopes to the rail,
One hand firmly locked on the coupler,
And one held out in the night,
While my eye gauged the distance, and measured
The speed of our slackening flight.
My mind, thank the Lord! it was steady;
I saw the curls of her hair,
And the face that, turning in wonder,
Was lit by the deadly glare.
I know little more—but I heard it—
The groan of the anguished wheels,
And remember thinking—the engine
In agony trembles and reels.
One rod! To the day of my dying
I shall think the old engine reared back,
And as it recoiled, with a shudder
I swept my hand over the track;
Then darkness fell over my eyelids,
But I heard the surge of the train,
And the poor old engine creaking,
As racked by a deadly pain.
They found us, they said, on the gravel,
My fingers enmeshed in her hair,
And she on my bosom a-climbing,
To nestle securely there.
We are not much given to crying—
We men that run on the road—
But that night, they said, there were faces
With tears on them, lifted to God.
For years in the eve and the morning,
As I neared the cabin again,
My hand on the lever prest downward
And slackened the speed of the train.
When my engine had blown her a greeting,
She always would come to the door;
And her look with a fulness of heaven
Blesses me evermore.
THE FACE UPON THE FLOOR
BY H. ANTOINE D'ARCY
'Twas a balmy summer evening, and a goodly crowd was there,
Which well-nigh filled Joe's barroom on the corner of the square;
And as songs and witty stories came through the open door,
A vagabond crept slowly in and posed upon the floor.
"Where did it come from?" some one said. "The wind has blown it in."
"What does it want?" another cried. "Some whisky, rum or gin?"
"Here, Toby, seek him, if your stomach's equal to the work—
I wouldn't touch him with a fork, he's as filthy as a Turk."