University of Virginia Library

Yet as night gathered around us there,
Swept through it a breath of torrid air;
And we were reminded that this storm
Of frozen rain that had locked us in,
Was the fag end of the winter's form,
And Spring was eager the field to win.
Came ominous rumbles more heavy than loud,
From many a far-off thunder-cloud;
Then sprites of the weather seemed to brood
Above and around us, in melting mood.
The storms from the valleys, hills, and plains
Were now refashioned to drenching rains;
The sky turned into an ocean dark;
Our railroad-refuge was now an ark—
Not tossing amid the floating wrack,
But stolidly standing upon its track.
'Twas “lucky” for us that we met that shock,
With road and roadbed as firm as rock!
For swiftly the snow where we were pent,
Was turned to the fourth-named element.
Came through the air, in its fiercest form,
Our curio-winter thunder-storm;
This weeping, moaning brunette of nights
Wore jewels of weird electric lights,
That dug themselves from the regions high—
Great diamond-fields of the boundless sky;
The plateaux of snow that had amassed
Were turned to rivers swift sweeping past;
Which need not stop, we were made to know,
But leaped a precipice miles below,
Invaded a gorge, and, fiercely free,
Set off for home, the unbounded sea
('Twas feared, if our moorings proved not strong,
We might have offers to go along).
And they were lighted along their path,
With watchfires kindled by Nature's wrath.