Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CONEMAUGH, by ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CONEMAUGH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fly to the mountain! Fly!
Last Line: "teach us, altho' we die, to stand."
Alternate Author Name(s): Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart; Phelps, Mary Gray
Subject(s): Conemaugh (river), Pennsylvania; Johnstown Flood (1889)


"FLY to the mountain! Fly!"
Terribly rang the cry.
The electric soul of the wire
Quivered like sentient fire.
The soul of the woman who stood
Face to face with the flood
Answered to the shock
Like the eternal rock.
For she stayed
With her hand on the wire,
Unafraid,
Flashing the wild word down
Into the lower town.
Is there a lower yet and another?
Into the valley she and none other
Can hurl the warning cry:
"Fly to the mountain! Fly!
The water from Conemaugh
Has opened its awful jaw.
The dam is wide
On the mountain-side!"

"Fly for your life, oh, fly!"
They said.
She lifted her noble head:
"I can stay at my post, and die."

Face to face with duty and death,
Dear is the drawing of human breath,
"Steady, my hand! Hold fast
To the trust upon thee cast.
Steady, my wire! Go, say
That death is on the way!
Steady, strong wire! Go, save!
Grand is the power you have!"

Grander the soul that can stand
Behind the trembling hand;
Grander the woman who dares;
Glory her high name wears.
"This message is my last!"
Shot over the wire, and passed
To the listening ear of the land.
The mountain and the strand
Reverberate the cry:
"Fly for your lives, oh, fly!
I stay at my post, and die."

The torrent took her. God knows all.
Fiercely the savage currents fall
To muttering calm. Men count their dead.
The June sky smileth overhead.
God's will we neither read nor guess.
Poorer by one more hero less,
We bow the head, and clasp the hand:
"Teach us, altho' we die, to stand."





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