Published in the Hull Weekly Express, Saturday 21st March 1885, inspired by a fire in High Street, Hull.
‘Twas that dark hour when nature seems to stay
Her onward process towards the opening day,
That silent moment in the early morn
Whose deeper blackness tells of coming dawn.
A weary watchman, on his lonely beat
Through court and alley, in a narrow street
Discern’d the glimmer of a tiny light
Shine through the shadows of expiring night.
Fire! The cry rang out; the night-wind heard,
And on its pinions took the warning word:
Louder and louder, through the streets it swept,
Waking the sleepers as it onward swept
*****
Hurrying feet
Rush through the street;
Madly excited,
People affrighted,
Eager to join in the wild, headlong race,
Seeking the Giant
Who, growing defiant
Illuminates the sky with his glowing red face.
Sleepers awaking,
Quivering, quaking,
Asking the cause of the sudden alarm,
Hear a bell tolling,
Engine wheels rolling,
Breaking the silence of a night’s holy calm.
Then, where so lately,
Lonely and stately,
Wrapt in the darkness, unnoticed and still,
Gloomily lowering,
Heavenward towering,
Sacred to labour, there stood a gaunt mill.
Flames are now leaping,
Retiring, creeping,
Licking the air with a serpent-like tongue,
Telling how fire
With restless desire
Feeds on the timber to which it has clung.
Red sparks ascending
A glowing track,
Their brief life ending
‘Mid vapour black;
The coils entwining
About their light ̶
Like dim stars shining
Through clouds at night,
One moment sprinkling
The sky with gems,
Then faintly twinkling,
Quench’d diadems.
Roused from their slumber
The Demons of fire,
Countless in number
Leap higher and higher.
Rushing and leaping
From pillar to wall,
Clinging and creeping,
But conquering all,
Heedless how thickly
The water may pour,
Drinking it quickly
And thirsting for more.
Hissing and splashing,
The crystalline stream,
Perishes flashing
Mid curtains of stream.
Then from its quiet
The wild wind awakes,
Share in the riot
It joyfully takes:
Laughingly blowing
The flames to and fro,
Heavenward throwing
A brilliant glow.
So in their madness
The elements fight,
Waking to sadness
The slumbering night
*****
Then when advining the sky in the morning,
Crimson and gold show the breaking of day,
Grown less defiant, the terrible giant
Pauses a while in the midst of his play.
Soon growing lighter, the sky is much brighter,
Upward the sun rises, radiant and clear:
Slowing retiring, the flames seem expiring
Shock’d at the havoc and hiding in fear.
Tho’ daylight’s diffusion subdues the confusion,
Tho’ hours glide along, and the fire is suppress’d
When th’sun is descending and daylight is ending
The only bright glitter is seen in the west.
*****
Desolate, lonely, a skeleton only,
The fire-rent walls of that once busy mill.
Roofless and falling, remain there recalling
That night when destruction exerted her will.