“Two piers, you know, bore up the former bridge, Cleaving the current, wedge-like, on the north; Between them stood our couple, intergrouped With many others. On a sudden loomed An immolating terror from above,— A floating field of ice, where fifty cakes Had clung together, mingled with a mass Of _débris_ from the upper conflict, logs Woven in with planks and fence-rails; and in front One huge, old, fallen trunk rose like a wall Across the channel. Then arose a cry From all who saw it, clamoring, _Flee the bridge!_ _Run shoreward for your lives!_ and all made haste, Eastward and westward, till they felt the ground Stand firm beneath them; but, with close-locked arms, Lucy and George still looked, from the lower rail, Toward the promontory where we stood, Nor saw the death, nor seemed to hear the cry. _Run George! run Lucy!_ shouted all at once; Too late, too late! for, with resistless crash, Against both piers that mighty ruin lay A space that seemed an hour, yet far too short For rescue. Swaying slowly back and forth, With ponderous tumult, all the bridge went off; Piers, beams, planks, railings snapped their groaning ties And fell asunder! “But the middle part, Wrought with great bolts of iron, like a raft Held out awhile, whirled onward in the wreck This way and that, and washed with freezing spray. Faster than I can tell you, it came down Beyond our point, and in a flash we saw George, on his knees, close-clinging for dear life, One arm around the remnant of the rail, One clasping Lucy. We were pale as they, Powerless to save; but even as they swept Across the bend, and twenty stalwart men Ran to and fro with clamor for _A rope!_ _A boat!_—their cries together reached the shore: _Save her! Save him!_—so true Love conquers all. Furlongs below they still more closely held Each other, ’mid a thousand shocks of ice And seething horrors; till, at last, the end Came, where the river, scornful of its bed, Struck a new channel, roaring through the grove. There, dashed against a naked beech that stood Grimly in front, their shattered raft gave up Its precious charge; and then a mist of tears Blinded all eyes, through which we seemed to see Two forms in death-clasp whirled along the flood, And all was over. “Then from out the crowd Certain went up the lane, and broke the news To Lucy’s widowed mother; she spoke not, Nor wept, nor murmured, but with stony glare Took in her loss, like Niobe, and to bed Moved stolidly and never rose again. Old Farmer Dorrance gave a single groan, And hurried down among us—all the man, Though white with anguish—as we took our course Around the meadows, searching for the dead.