Poems for the Sea/The Hero
THE HERO.
[The following incident took place during the great conflagration in the city of New York, on the cold night of December 16th, 1836.]
Ah! fearful was the sight!
The fire devouring spread
From roof to roof, from street to street,
And on their treasures fed;
Hark! to that Mother's cry
Amid the tumult wild,
As rushing toward her flame-wrapped home,
She shrieks, "My child! my child!"
A wanderer from the wave
A sailor marked her woe,
And in his feeling bosom woke
The sympathetic glow,
Quick up the cleaving stairs,
With daring step he flew,
Though sable clouds of stifling smoke
Concealed him from the view;
Loud was the admiring voice,
Yet mix'd with shuddering fear,
For him, who nobly risk'd his life,
Mov'd by a stranger's tear;
The blazing timbers fell
Across his dangerous road,
And the far chamber where he groped,
Like reeking oven glow'd.
How high the exulting shout!
When from that mass of flame,
Unhurt, unshrinking, undismayed,
The brave deliverer came,
While in his victor arms
A smiling infant lay,
Pleased with the flash that round his bed
Had wound its glittering ray.
The mother's speechless tears
Forth like a torrent sped,
Yet ere the throng could learn his name
That generous hero fled;
Not for the praise of man
He wrought this deed of love,
But, on a bright unfading page,
'Tis registered above.
