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Title: Nature's Heroes
Author: J. C. Manning [
More Titles by Manning]
DEDICATED TO THE WELSH MINERS WHO BRAVELY RESCUED THEIR FELLOWS AT THE INUNDATION OF THE TYNEWYDD COLLIERY.
FRIDAY, APRIL 20TH, 1877. (a)
Hero from instinct, and by nature brave,
Is he who risks his life a life to save;
Who sees no peril, be it e'er so great,
Where helpless human lives for succour wait;
Who looks on death with selfless disregard;
Whose sense of duty brings its own reward.
Such are the Braves who now inspire my pen:
Pride of the gods--and heroes among men.
The warrior who, on glorious battle plain,
Falls bravely fighting--dies to live again
In fame hereafter: this he, falling, knows;
And painless hence are War's most painful blows.
This is the hope that buoys his latest breath,
Stanches the wound, and plucks the sting from death.
But humbler hearts that sally forth to fight
'Gainst foes unseen, in realms of pitchy night,
Ne'er dreaming that the chivalrous affray
Will e'er be heard of--more than heroes they,
And more deserving they their country's praise
Than nobler names that wear their country's bays.
Duty, which glistens in the garish beam
That makes it beautiful--as jewels gleam
When sunlight pours upon them--lacks the pow'r,
The grandeur, which, in dark and secret hour,
Crowns lowly brows with bravery more bright
Than fame achieved in Glory's dazzling light.
Nature's heroics need but suns to shine
To show the world their origin divine:
And as the plant in darksome cave will grow
Whether warm sunshine bless its face or no,
A secret impulse yearning day and night
In hourly striving tow'rds the unseen light,
So lives the hero-germ in every heart--
Of earthy life the bright, the heavenly part:
The pow'r that brings the blossom from the sod,
And gives to man an attribute of God.
(a) Four men and a boy were entombed for nine days, from noon on Wednesday, April 11th, to mid-day on Friday, April 20th, in the Tynewydd Pit, Rhondda Valley. They were at length rescued by the almost super-human efforts of a band of brave workers, who, at the risk of their lives, cut through 38 yards of the solid coal-rock in order to get at their companions, working day and night, and, at times, regarding every stroke a prelude to almost certain death. Their heroic exertions were crowned with success, and they received the recorded thanks of their Queen and country, having the further honour bestowed upon them of being the first recipients of the Albert medal, given by Her Majesty for acts of exceptional bravery.
[The end]
J. C. Manning's poem: Nature's Heroes
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