He bounded up: his practised eye,
Was turn’d upon the lurid sky,
Lit by the flames, which mounting higher,
Soon clothed the night in a robe of fire.
With lightning speed he reach’d the scene—
Oh! what a sight was there!
A mother stood amid the flames,
And shriek’d in wild despair!
Her arms around her frighten’d babe
Where thrown with frenzied clasp,