Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-29

Calls, and shrieks for wife, and child;
Shouts and calls for sister, brother,
As the foaming torrent, wild,
Sheer through walls resistless crashing,
Stone or brick or oaken wood,
Like to shot and shrapnel dashing
Hurtling through the battles smoke,
Hurled the mountain pine, and oak,
Rude artillery of the flood;
Crushing, churches, homes, and people,
In that elementary strife;
Crushing hearts with human life.
o. the blessed heart of woman,
In that hours supreme diBmay,
Sacrifice heroic making;
Brave devotion men display;
Self-negations, faith sublime,
Threads of gold, around the darkness
OF despairs. by love entwined;
Cleaning ever through the lapse OF time.
o, the woe and desolationi
That in robe and shroud of awe
Clothe the City of the Gorges,
Wrapped the queen OF Conemaugh,
Where throes of birth, and pangs Of death,
Cry of first drawn, last gasped breath,
Minor. major chords of being,
Dawn and night of human life,
Twain born problem of existence,
1ntermingled in that strife.
Darkness DER the water dropping,
Scenes OF death, and horror, yelling,
AS the night winds moaning, wailing,
Sobbing dirges for the morrow
hepI accord wild human SOrrOWs
Cry of parent wall of child,
Moan of sufferers, bruised, and torn,
Sobs of breaking hearts beside the
Corpses from the water borne;
From meath logs, and pond'rous irons,
From meath bricks, and stones, and mud,
Borne from crushed and dying hundreds,
Where the stone bridge stemmed the flood,
Where the flames will roar, and hiss,
Fierce-devoured dead and quick,
Q the horrors of that death pile!
Frenzy of survivors, while
Red tOngued fires eager lick
Dead and living, crushed and crowded,
In one broad cremation pyre;
Where the fragments of their houses
Built and fed their funeral fire.
Houses reared from years of savings,
Fruit of many toilsome days,
For the dear ones. Christ have mercyI
Burnt TO ashes in their blaze.
Who shall tell the frsnz led seeking,
Hours of agony intense,
Passed in waiting fearing, hoping
In the auguished hearts suspense.
Voices calling from the hillside,
Voices calling from the shore,
Ealing, calling, calling lost ones,
Who Will never answer moro.
Torches faring long the river,
Torches blazing through the night,
While the mountain ashes quiver,
Quaking at the fearful sight.
Men the shore aud torrent searching,
fearful women sobbing, dreading
~ nat the torches CLEAN may show;
render faces, torn and bruised.
Mangled in the weeds. and ooze,
With their tresses f0uled and tangled;
Eyes that wont with love to shine
TORN from sockets, filled with refuse;
Gray hairs, black with mud and slime,
Y, the stony, fearless sorrow!
Y, the heart-breaks of the morrow!
Mournful City of the Gorges.
Horror.famous Conemaugh,
In an hours rapid heeting
Sadder sight the world ne'er saw;
Slender maidens dead and clothless,
Save the tresscs of their hair,
Lying in the harsh embraces
or the cruel ruins there:
Llfeless babe and liteless mother,
Mid the weeds and bushes lying,
In their last embraces drowned;
Wife and husband, sister, brother,
Man and woman, age ana youth,
Mid the the ruins dead and dying,
BY the wreckage held and bound;
Where the red flames dance and flicker
On the faces all distorted;
All! the lives forever saddened!
Hopes and plans forever thwartedl
D, the grand and glorious naturel
Scarce the hurried message telling
Half the horror, half the death,
Scarce the lightning. swiftly passing,
Gave the direful story breath.
Scarce along the wires, sobbing,
Spread the story far and wide,
Than the voice of pity swelling,
Came, and came from every side.
No one hating, no one waiting
For his neighborsi lead, or law,
Fast as rose the waters round thee,
Stricken city of the Conemaugh,
Swooning in thy tears and grieS,
Came the succor, came relief.
Up from California's gate,
Where Mt Shasta pierces air,
New England hills. and Tampa's sands,
Hudson, and the Delaware,
Rose and swelled the nations voice,
Like another torrents roar,
Flowed the peoples offerings as the
Waters of the Conemaugh;
From tho hearth of cor and mansion,
Hlll, and plain, and vale and wood,
Soase TO coast, across the nation;
God piess and spread such brotherhood,
FOR the seed our Savior planted
Eighteen hundred years ago,
Blossomed into precious fruitage
w hen distress. and death, and woe,
Hiding on the mountain torrents,
In that terreaqueous war,
Smote the city of the Gorges.
Smote the queen of Conemaugh.
y, the noble, generous nation!
Waiting not for supplication,
Hurrying feet of thronging people
Crowding change, and church, and hall,
Sixty million people giving,
Cheerful giving, one and ali:
Thoui who lowest the Cheerful river
Prosper, Lord. the land forever:
Children's pennies. widows mite
Workmen's offerings free as air;
From the left hand and the right,
princely gifts of millionaire,
Clothes. and food, and gold, and silver,