Another awful error--what a scrape
I found myself within, and how escape?
I threw myself once more upon the bed,
Great drops of perspiration on my head,
Feeling bewildered, destitute of hope,
With such a series of mishaps to cope.
If those fast bolted shutters had not been
So firmly closed, I might have had a gleam
Of the blest early dawn, but I _will_ try,
Thought I, to open them; then by and bye
I'll dress and go to Harry to explain,
Before he meets his sister or sees Jane.
I felt my way then cautiously along,
Quite nervous, lest I should again go wrong.
The window was a bow one--on I passed,
Still groping onward, till I cried at last,
Ah! here it is, this is the curtain slide;
I passed within, when--how shall I describe
My woeful plight? I screamed and yelled with pain,
My feelings to describe, alas! 'twere vain,
In the self-acting shower bath I had stepped.
And in a torrent its freed waters leapt
On my distracted form, with deafening sound,
Which sent me stunned and spinning to the ground
In painful and undignified surprise;
The curtains having deadened the wild cries,
Wrung from me under such enforced surprise,
No one had been aware of my sad plight.
As dripping, shivering with the sudden fright,
I drew my wet clothes off and felt my way