________________________________________________
Title: The Brooklyn Catastrophe Of December 5th, 1876
Author: Hannah S. Battersby [
More Titles by Battersby]
Twas eve in Brooklyn, and the bracing air
Of northern regions fanned the city fair,
Urging life's currents to a generous flow
And quick'ning nerve and pulse to joyful glow.
A touching tragedy had been installed
Within the theatre, "The Orphans" called,
One of the most successful dramas sage,
America has placed upon the stage.
To it for peaceful recreation strayed
Scores of the citizens, en fete arrayed,
Some with beloved ones whom they hoped one day,
Might be their partners through life's checkered way.
Others formed parties from the family group,
Maidens and children in the joy of youth,
Glad schoolboys taken for reward or treat,
And worthless idlers sauntering from the street.
Many a fond and loving pair were there
Who in each other's joys and griefs had share;
Grave statesmen, merchants, all in that brief hour,
Sat spell-bound by the dramatist's rare power.
When in an instant the appalling cry
Of fire! fire!! fire!!! was heard resounding high;
The terror-stricken crowd in blank dismay
Rushed frantically towards each narrow way.
No ears had they for the brave girl who sought
To counsel in that hour with horror fraught,
Who cried "We are between you and the fire,
Be calm, for God's sake, in this danger dire."
[Footnote: On the first alarm of fire and whilst others were escaping,
Miss Kate Claxton with three other actors came bravely forward to the
footlights uttering these words of passionate entreaty.]
Those nearest haply reached the narrow way,
And thanking God, emerged from the affray,
Whilst others stumbled, dazed with terror wild
And soon in tangled heaps lay powerless piled.
In wildest proxysms of fear and pain,
Each sought his giddy footing to retain,
Whilst piercing cries of agonized despair,
Rose through the gloomy smoke-charged stifling air.
Then suffocation, oft more merciful
Than fire, its victims claimed to lull,
Scared victims, gasping for that precious air,
Which fire and smoke alike refused them there.
Fast hurried on the greedy tongues of fire,
To make of those dread mounds a funeral pyre,
As raging onward o'er their victims broke,
The fearful conflict of the fire and smoke.
Dread was the scene o'er which the Fire King laughed
As he his bowl of frantic pleasure quaffed,
Whilst the doomed structure tottered in the girth
Of his wild, bellowing, satanic mirth.
Strong men and feeble women, young and old,
Statesmen, financiers, and warriors bold,
Who were a short hour since elate with pride.
Now charred and calcined, slumber side by side.
The fierce insatiate fire-fiend raging flew
In wild demoniac rage the structure through,
Tearing down rafters, hurling to the ground,
Props, pillars roof-beams with appalling sound.
Oh! what a scene of strife raged wildly there,
'Mid cries for help and struggles of despair;
All human efforts powerless to assuage,
The greedy fire-fiend's devastating rage.
The fiery monster dashed away all trace,
Of that late mimic world of beauteous grace,
Swallowing in a fleet, wrathful breath of rage,
All the vain baubles of the tinseled stage.
All the wild tumult has subsided now,
Hushed is the pleading prayer and woe strung vow,
Breathed by fond parents, brothers, husbands, wives
Of near three hundred late exultant lives!
Then, as the demon's rage was well nigh spent,
He o'er the drenched and trampled corses bent,
Effacing as he best could, every trace
Of recognition from each ghastly face.
Drunken and gorged the sated fire-fiend spread
His gloomy sable shroud about the dead,
And left the fort he could not longer hold
Conquered by man's heroic efforts bold.
Too painful 'twould be to prolong the tale,
Of that which followed, or the piteous wail
Of friends bereaved, who sought with harrowing dread,
To single out their loved ones from the dead.
Close we, by urging those in power to do
What well becomes all rulers wise and true,
To make new laws, enforced by vigorous means,
To spare all repetition of such scenes.
Oft will Columbia sing to future time,
Of her centennial union sublime
But ever with the memorable year,
Will mingle memories of this history drear.
[The end]
Hannah S. Battersby's Poem: Brooklyn Catastrophe Of December 5th, 1876
________________________________________________
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
