Explore "The Rescue" by Edward Dyson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There's a sudden, fierce clang of the knocker, then / the sound of a voice in the shaft, / Shrieking words that drum hard on the centres, and / the braceman goes suddenly daft: / 'Set the whistle a-blowing like blazes! Billy, run, / give old Mackie a call -- / Run, you fool! Number Two's gone to pieces, and / Fred Baker is caught in the fall! / Say, hello! there below -- any hope, boys, any chances / of saving his life? / 'Heave away! ' says the knocker. They've started. / God be praised, he's no youngsters or wife!'
Screams the whistle in fearful entreaty, and the wild / echo raves on the spur, / And the night, that was still as a sleeper in soft, / charmed sleep, is astir / With the fluttering of wings in the wattles, and the / vague frightened murmur of birds, / With far cooeys that carry the warning, running / feet, inarticulate words. / From the black belt of bush come the miners, and / they gather by Mack on the brace, / Out of breath, barely clad, and half-wakened, with a / question in every face.