And, amid the masses, trying,--
Vainly trying--to escape on either hand.
O child so rashly daring!
Who thy dreadful peril sharing
Shall, to save thee, tempt the terrors of the flood
That roaring, leaping, swirling,
And continuously whirling,
Threats to whelm in frightful deeps thy tender form!
The helpless soldiers, standing
On a small precarious landing,
Think of nothing but the child and her despair,
When a voice as from the Highest,--
To the child he being nighest--
Falls _"Quick-march!"_ upon the ear of Sergeant Neill.
O blessed sense of duty!
As on banderole of duty
His unswerving eye he fixes on the child;
And straight o'er floe and fissure,
Fragments yielding to his pressure,
Toppling berg, and giddy block, he takes his way;
Sometimes climbing, sometimes crawling.
Sometimes leaping, sometimes falling,
Till at last he stands where cowers the weeping child.
Then with all a victor's bearing.
As in warlike honours sharing,
With the child all closely clasped upon his breast,
O'er floe and hummock taking
Any step for safety making,
On he goes, till they who watch can see no more.
For both glass and light are failing.
As the ice-pack, slowly sailing,
Bears him onward past the shore of far Longueil.
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