Improtnptu.
[Written on the subject of that never-to-be-forgotten fearful Accident, at Hartley Colliery, January, 1862, by which horrid catastrophe Two Hundred and Seven Persons were hurried into Eternity.]
Hark! a loud cry of anguish rends the air,
And none are silent, save where mute despair
Hath choked all utterance—where, with pallid cheek,
A wife or mother vainly tries to speak!
Fathers, in agony, look trembling on,
Whose son or sons down that dread shaft have gone;
And all is misery, grief, and dark dismay
At Hartley Colliery on that mournful day.
Not all are paralysed, strong men are there,
Who, spite of danger and the dread foul air,
Work on in willingness by night and day.
Doing in earnest all that mortals may
To drag from the jaws of Death their comrades—brave
If any yet might live in that gigantic grave,
Masters and men alike, with noble, feeling hearts,
In that "sad drama" bravely played their parts.
Oh, but 'twas terrible, that dire suspense!
Freezing the blood, benumbing every sense,
Till, from the yawning abyss, men appear,
Whose looks are ghastly, fraught with livid fear,
And from their pale parched lips (some shrieking fled)
Fell the appalling sentence—All are dead!
There are no words that may express that scene
'Twere well in pity, perhaps, to draw a screen
