Sitting his big bay horse astride.

'Run for your lives to the hills!" he cried; "Run to the hills!" was what he said

As he waved his hand and dashed ahead.

"Run for your lives to the hills!" he cried,
Spurring his horse, whose reeking side
Was flecked with foam as red as flame.
Whither he goes and whence he came
Nobody knows. They see his horse
Plunging on in his frantic course,
Veins distended and nostrils wide,
Fired and frenzied at such a ride.
Nobody knows the rider's name-
Dead forever to earthly fame.

"Run to the hills! to the hills!" he cried; Run for your lives to the mountain-side!"

44

"Stop him! he's mad! just look at him go!
"Tain't safe," they said, "to let him ride so."
"He thinks to scare us," said one, with a laugh,
"But Conemaugh folks don't swallow no chaff.
'Tain't nothing, I'll bet, but the same old leak
In the dam above the South Fork Creek."
Blind to their danger, callous of dread,
They laughed as he left them and dashed ahead.
"Run for your lives to the hills!" he cried,
Lashing his horse in his desperate ride.

Down through the valley the rider passed,
Shouting, and spurring his horse on fast;
But not so fast did the rider go
As the raging, roaring, mighty flow

Of the million feet and the millions more
Of water whose fury he fled before.
On he went, and on it came,
The flood itself a very flame
Of surging, swirling, seething tide,
Mountain high and torrents wide.

God alone might measure the force

Of the Conemaugh flood in its V-shaped course. Behind him were buried under the flood Conemaugh town and all who stood

Jeering there at the man who cried,

Struck the bridge and swept it away Like a bit of straw or a wisp of hay. But over and under and through that tide The voice of the unknown rider cried. "Run to the hills! to the hills!" it cried"Run for your lives to the mountain-side!" JOHN ELIOT BOWEN.

-Harper's Weekly, June 15, 1889.

ON LIFE'S BANQUET STAIRS. WE pass each other on Life's banquet stairs; New guests are mounting to the festal light While we descend together to the night, Close muffled 'gainst the outside wintry airs.

They tread upon our shadows as they climb With quick strong steps to join the crowd and crush.

We see, in sparkling eyes and speaking blush, How expectation gilds the coming time.

Young forms go by us, tossing rosy sprays
In brave apparel: tints of flower and bird,
And blossom-patches by the summer stirr'd,
With sheen of woven silk, and gems that scatter
rays.

Knew we such rest, true heart! when mounting up?
Such haste to lift the chalice to our lips,
To learn if pleasure sweeter is in sips,
Or when, with manhood's thirst, we drain the cup?

Shall we stand by and carp at these-and say

"Go giddy ones, and moth-like fire your wings,Pleasure is pain, and laughter sorrow brings." Shall we speak thus, who once were young as they?

Nay-rather will we greet with smiles-our eyes
God-speeding them-warm sun about our snow.
To one or two, we'll whisper as they go-
Night follows noon.-Be moderate, be wise!

For me-ah true! I've sung 'neath Heaven's dome

Sung at my work-and bask'd in kindly rays That seem, when gleaming out of memory's

haze,

The efflorescence of an unseen Home.

And I have known mute days of gloom and cloud When copse and wood were voiceless in the Spring

To my shut ears.-When hope, outrun, took wing,

And sorrow swathed my soul as with a shroud.