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Frontier Ballads
Ever and ever to faster speed.
Knowing still if the blow should fall
It would shatter the village wall from wall.
Now from the sides of the car behind,
Fanned by its flight through the rushing wind,
Burst the flames in a lashing sheet
Peeling the paint with its fervid heat,
Vomiting sparks like a fiery hail
On the cars that rocked in its lurid trail.
Still the mogul, in giant flight,
Swaying drunkenly left and right,
Strained to the race, while the rails it trod
Thundered behind it, rod by rod;
Still in its cab, foredoomed, alone.
Waiting death like a man of stone,
Stood Garcia, his feet braced wide
To the pitch and plunge of the engine's stride,
With never a frown to show he knew
Regret for the task he was there to do.
Hardly a mile had his wild train fled
Into the desert straight ahead,
When a flare of light to his vision came
As if the world were engulfed in flame.
Perhaps it fell on his closing eyes
Like the great, white light of Paradise;
Perhaps, in the roar which smote him there,
Too deep for a mortal ear to bear,
He heard but the Heavenly trumpet-roll
Blown clear to welcome a hero's soul.
At least, if any have won to rest
In the fair, green land of the ever blest
By earning their right therein to dwell,
Jesus Garcia deserved it well,
For in the blast that strewed his train,
Torn in fragments, along the plain,
Only his soul went forth to meet
The' final call at his Master's feet. |
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