Forth to the rescue went the miners bold, Regardless of the tempest wild and brisk, Regardless of the driving snow and cold, Regardless of the hazard and the risk; Facing with stalwart resolution brave The snowy fate of those they strove to save. One form of courage nerves the soldier's arm, Excitement overcomes the wild alarm Which at the onset e'en the bravest feel, Though self-possession may that fear conceal. The unromantic dangers of the storm Require another and a sterner form, For no emotion nerves the craven breast To tempt the snowslide on the mountain's crest; That noblest element unnoticed thrives Beneath the surface in unnumbered lives; At danger's call the sympathetic bond Leaps to the surface, as the waves respond When one has tossed a pebble in a pond; For man has ever since the world began Laid down his life to save his fellow-man; Heroes are they, no praise commensurate, Who do their duty in the face of fate. Through gloomy forests, intricate and dark, Which skirt the confines of the mountain park, With arduous climb and hazardous ascent Up through the gulch precipitous and wild To where the avalanche its force had spent, In silent haste the rescue party filed. On such occasions little may be said, The sternest use subdued and whispered breath, For silence seems contagious from the dead, A vague, unconscious reverence for death. Facing the inconvenience of the blast, Which whirled the drifting snowflakes as it passed, The party shovelled; and with one accord Abstained from converse, no one spoke a word Till hours of strenuous search disclosed to sight Six corpses from their sepulchre of white. The other two, who by some wondrous means, Escaped with but some trifling cuts and sprains, Were in the meantime by their fellows found, Dazed and exhausted in the gulch below, For storm-bewildered men will grope around Describing circles in the blinding snow, Until they sink, their vital forces spent, And crystal snowflakes weave their cerement. Six pairs of skies,[1] each improvised a sled, On which were placed the stark and staring dead; As flickering lanterns flashed a ghostly glow Upon them in their winding-sheets of snow, The sad procession now retraced its course Back through the dismal forest, while the blast Wailed forth a requiem in accents hoarse, Which shuddering pines re-echoed as it passed. * * * * *