Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-09-25
81. Fl CHURCH.

In view of the fact stated in our dispatchesre re-
Gently. that st. Michaels Church., Charleston, ).
c., will have to be torn down on account of the
injuries it received by the shocks. the following
poem. entitled. How st. MichaePs was Saved,
win be read with interest
Do you beg for a story, my darling, my brown
eyed Leopold
And you, Alice, with face like morning, II
curling locks of gold?
Then come, if you viii, and listen-stand close
beside my knee
To d tale of a Southern city, proud Charleston
by the sea.
1t was long ago, my children, ere ever the signal
gun
That blazed about Fort Sumter had the
North as one:
Long ere the yondrous pillar of battlecloud and
fire
Had marked where the unclaimed millions
marched on TO their hearts desire.
On the roofs and the gilt. ing turrets, that night,
as the stin went down,
The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a
jeweled crown;
And. ba,hed in the living glory, as the people
lifted their eyes,
They saw the pride of the city, the spire of st.
Michael's rise.
High over the lesser steeples, tipped with the
golden ball,
Tina. hung like n radiant planet caught in its
earthward fall
First glimpse of home to the sailor V no made the
harbor-round.
And last siow-fading vision dear TO the outward
bound.
The gently gathering shadows shut out the wan
dering light
The children prayed at their bedsides as you
will pray tonight
The noise of buyer and seller from the busy mart
has gone,
And in dreams of a peaceful morrow the city
slumbeIed ON.
But another light than sunrise aroused the
sleeping street,
For a cry was heard at midnight, and the rush
of tramping feet
Me staredin each others faces through mingled
fire and smoke,
While the frantic bells went elashing, clamorous
stroke on stroke.
By the glare of her blazing tree the houseless
mother fled,
With the babe she pressed to her bosom Shrek
ing i'll nameless dread,
While the fire-king's wild battalions scaled wall
and capstone high,
And planted their faringi banners against an
inky sky.
From the death that ragged behind them, and the
crash of ruin loud,
TIC the great square of the city were driven the
surging crowd,
Where yet, firm in all the tumult, nnscathed by
the fiery hood,
With its h~eayenward- pointing fngerthe Church
of 81. Michael stood.
But even as they gazed upon it there rose n sud
den wall
A cry of horror-blended with the roaring of the
gale,
On whose searching wings, up driven. a single
AHoat on the towering steeple chung like a
bloody hand.
" Will it fade ~ The whisper trembled from a
thousand whitening lips
Far out in the lurid harbor they watched it on
the ships
A baletul CLEAN that brighter and ever brighter
shone,
Like a Pickering, trembling will-o' wisp to a
steady beacon grown.
'' Uncounted gold shall be given to the man
whose brave right hand
For the love of the periled city plucks down yon
So cried the Mayor of Charleston, that the peo-
pie heard
But they looked each one al his fellow, aud no
man spoke a word.
Who is it leans from the belfry, with face up
turned to the sky,
Clings 10 a column and measures the dizzy spire
with his eye?
viii he dare it, the hero %undaunted, that terri
BILE sickening height?
Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in his
veins at the sight?
But, see he has stepped on the railing he
climbs with his feet and his hands
And firm on the. narrow projection, with the
belfry beneath him, he stands
NOW once, anu once only, tney cneer NINA
single tempestuous breath
And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush
like the stiffness of death.
Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught save
the goal of the fire,
Still higher and higher, an atom, he moves on
the face of the spire.
He stops I Will he fall Lo for answer, q
CLEAN like a meteors track,
And, hurled on the stones of thu pavement the
red brand lies shattered and black.
once more the shouts OF the people have rent the
quivering air
And at the church door Mayor and Council wait.
their feet on the stair
And the eager throng behind them press for q
touch of his hand
The unknown savior whose daring could COM
pass a deed so grand.
But why does a sudden tremor seize OF them
while they gaze?
And what eaneth that stitied murmur of won
der aud amaze
He stood at the gate of the temple he had periled
his life to save
And the face of the hero, my children, was the
sable face of a slave.
With folded arms he was speaking, in tones that
were clear, not load,
And his ewes, a blaze in their sockets. burnt into
the eyes of the crowd
:" You may keep yoar gold | scorn it but an
swer me, We who can,
If the deed | have done before you was not the
deed of a man :,
He stepped but Il short space backward and
from all the women and men
There were only sobs for answer and the Mayor
called fS a pen
And the great seal of the city, that he might read
who ran
And the slave who saved st. Michaers went out
from its door a man.