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.