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Like slug or grape shot: “Hark! ye, dumb-heads,
Swift call the fire-brigade!” or bristled
As “flay their mangy hides for drum-heads!”
He roared:—then down the staircase jumps
In flights, ejaculating: “Pumps:”
Now, “whirra! whirra! hammer! hammer!”
Hose, engine, firemen headlong gallop,
Cleaving the mobs that chafe and clamour
Like surfs behind a racing shalop.
Pouff! whizz! flies on the painted dragon,
Fuchs foremost brandishing a flagon.
Just, only just in time they reach it—
The fated house, its portal glaring
With the red bonfires piled to breach it,
Where on the ground like cherubs blaring
The faithful lie, their puffed cheeks beaming
Like gourds a-roast or pumpkins steaming.
And all along the façade, by the
Ground-storey window bars deflected,
From juniper and larch branch fly the
Bright swarm of sparks, in spires ejected:
And men, with Alpine rhododendron
Flaring like tow, from end to end run.
Close packed behind, like fields in fallow,
The dense mob heaves in breathless rapture,
When pizz! whizz! splash from bald pate sallow
Off flies a hat, the hat to capture
The owner with scant back hair dripping
Among the crowd goes dipping, dipping.
And now another splash, bang, fizzle,
