“I came to a broad river, where two ferrymen were toiling painfully at their work. I loosened the ice that had been formed farther up, and it crushed them to death in its mad career.
“Beside a mountain, a solitary foot-traveller, of three score years and ten, was ascending a road heavily and slow. I chilled the crimson current in his veins, and the pure white snow became his winding sheet. What matter! It was his time to die.
“On yonder rock-bound coast, a fisherman was startled from his fireside by a signal of distress. He looked through the darkness and discovered a noble ship hastening toward a dangerous reef. I brought her there, regardless of the costly merchandize and freight of human life. She struck,—and three hundred hardy men went down into that black roaring element which gives not back its dead. The morrow will dawn, and the child at home will lisp its father’s name, unconscious of his fate, and the wife will smile and press her infant to her bosom, not doubting but that her husband will soon return to bless her with his love. I have no sympathy with the widow and the fatherless.
“Hark! did you not hear it?—that dismal shout! Alas! the deed is done,—the touch of the incendiary hath kindled a fire such as this city has never beheld. What rich and glowing color in those clouds of smoke rising so heavily from yonder turrets! Already they are changed into an ocean of flame, hissing and roaring. Unheard, save at intervals, is the cry of the watchman, and the ringing bells; and muffled are the hasty footsteps of the thronging multitude, for the snow is deep. Slowly do the engines rumble along, while strained to their utmost are the sinews of those hardy firemen. But useless is all this noise and labor, for the receptacles of water are blocked with ice. Fire! fire!! fire!!!”
And here endeth the song of Euroclydon, which was listened to on the 16th of December, 1835. It will be recollected, that when the sun rose in unclouded beauty on the following morning, six hundred buildings had been consumed, many lives lost and twenty millions of property destroyed.
MYSTERY.
All things are dark! A mystery shrouds the same
Yon gorgeous sun or twilight’s feeble star.
We feel, but who can analyze the flame