Blast

“ On our return, the eye, having had time to accommodate itself to the darkness around, embraced several objects; the roof, sides, and crags in many places, which had before escaped it. Our entertainment also was varied by a blast, as it is termed—the discharge of a small quantity of gunpowder thrust into the rock, occasioning an explosion only to be compared to that sound which the imagination would conceive might be produced, if universal nature were at once to tumble into ruins. ”

“ The large drops fell occasionally from the boughs of the fine ash which extends itself over them, shielding them from the roughness of the east blast in this their day of the north blast, seeming in fancy’s eye as if weeping for the decay of that which it protected; while the ivy, like a faithful friend, sheds its tears unseen in the bosom of one whom all had deserted. ”

“ The young man whom you were to marry on his return from the war was standing on the verge of the crater when the explosion came, and he is now lying there, with both eyes blown out by the awful blast and hanging on his cheeks. There are visions of you in the blasted eyes, and there are thoughts of you in the dazed brain, and his dying breath is a whisper of your name. ”

“ As we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leafless boughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm, trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zeal of many,—and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail still more and more exasperated our discontent. ”

“ There was a vivid flash—it seemed to wrap the mast in one blue sheet of flame, while all around was dark, we saw it then, a female with a child in her arms, floating, as it seemed, upon the wind, now drifting towards him, now whirled upon the blast to a distance. ”

“ Then comes the ignition of the gas in one scathing burning blast, the herald of death to the offender and to those nearest the explosion, while for those who are farther away, and who are warned by the thunderous roar, there is the race for life as they tear for the pit’s mouth, to be too often overtaken by the deadly choke-damp, whose poisonous strangling fumes follow the firing of the gas. ”

“ Overhead the sky changes almost with the speed of the blast; sometimes the sun winks from a corner of the leaden clouds and tinges with glorious light the foam-bladders as they burst and scatter around their clouds of spray ”

“ These human beings whom the blast cuts even among their straw are like a crowd of the wretched wrecks of cities who await, under the lowering sky of winter, the opening of some charitable institution. ”

“ These, these with all their wealth, the various stores Of luxury and commerce, to the flames Abandon'd, sink an undefended prey, Swelling the general wreck; unheeded sink By their possessors, flying for their lives: Cries, groans, laments, on every side resound.
[Pg 84] Sudden a magazine of nitrous grain Bursts in a blazing column to the clouds; The dread explosion shakes the solid ground, And through the skies in lengthening thunder rolls: Driven by the furious overwhelming blast To distance round, the burning fragments fall On every side ”

“ Around you smoky clouds like ogres tower; The earth is rowelled deep with spurs of flame, And on your helmet stones and ashes shower. BUT ON YOU CHARGE. It's odd! You have no fear. Machine-gun bullets whip and lash your path; Red, yellow, black the smoky giants rear; The shrapnel rips, the heavens roar in wrath. BUT ON YOU CHARGE. Barbed wire all trampled down. The ground all gored and rent as by a blast; Grim heaps of grey where once were heaps of brown; A ragged ditch—the Hun first line at last. All smashed to hell. ”

“ The breeze was keen and so cutting, that one felt as if that part of the person exposed to it had undergone the process of excoriation, and when a stronger blast than usual swept over the naked and desolate-looking fields, its influence actually benumbed the joints, and penetrated the whole system with a sensation that made one imagine the very marrow within the bones was frozen. ”

“ Have you seen the coal heap in the forge, how the fire rages and glows within before the blast? Water is thrown on without quenching the fire, it only intensifies its heat. At last the black mass cracks on all sides and the white fury shoots out in spits and knives of flame. ”

“ "The East bow'd low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again. ”

“ Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. ”

“ That an unlimited amount of explosives distributed in blast-holes in moderate charges, proportioned to the work to be done, thoroughly confined in the rock, and tamped with water, may be fired without damage to surrounding objects. ”

“ The biggest chunks had either been completely disintegrated or splattered along the ground in all directions from the target area. It had been a direct hit. It only took one blast, but that didn't mean it was the only one in the country. When the attack came, every big city had probably been marked for destruction. ”

“ Right in front, violent blasts, every now and then, rushed with a dismal sound alternately scorching her limbs as if by flames of fire and lacerating them in an intense biting cold as if with a hundred thousand knives. ”

“ We crouch behind every corner, behind every barrier of barbed wire, and hurl heaps of explosives at the feet of the advancing enemy before we run. The blast of the hand-grenades impinges powerfully on our arms and legs ”

“ We saw the blasting from over yonder, and the explosion was extremely effective. You were enthroned yonder on the height like the mountain-sprite in his own person--all the others like ministering gnomes at your feet--a wave of your hand, and with the sound of muffled thunder the cliffs were split and sank in ruins--a genuine glimpse of fairyland! ”

“ The blast that wakes the fury of the sea? ”

“ In the light of the actual state of damage, the damaged district covers a wide area, and those who were in the district were all killed indiscriminately by bombshell blast and radiant heat without distinction of combatant or non-combatant or of age or sex. ”

“ The mechanical action of the blast in throwing about the liquid metal augments the internal tumult—intense flame issues with an angry roar from the converter's mouth, and the whole apparatus trembles as though it was possessed of a devil that was reluctant to be cast out. ”

“ Outside a radius of 2 kilometers and within a radius of 4 kilometers from X, men and animals suffered various degrees of injury from window glass and other fragments scattered about by the blast and many were burned by the intense heat. ”

“ They therefore piled high the wood on their fire, and gathered round the hot blaze, to protect them from the cold, that had now not only grown more intense, but become doubly difficult to withstand, from the force with which it was brought by the driving blasts in contact with their shivering persons. ”

“ The blast that swept him came off New Hampshire snow-fields and ice-hung forests. It seemed to have traversed interminable leagues of frozen silence, filling them with the same cold roar and sharpening its edge against the same bitter black-and-white landscape. ”

“ Returning, you go in face of the blasts and then, though it rarely happens, you have in mind, if you have ever been in front of one, the awkward possibility of a premature burst of a shell in your face. ”

“ They are still childish and primitive. Our blast-furnaces are mere adaptations of the prehistoric pits, changed into hollow columns and enlarged according to requirements. And one continues throwing in the ore and the combustible pell mell, and burning them together. One might take such a furnace to be some infernal animal, down whose throat one is for ever pouring food compounded of coal and oxide of iron, which the beast digests amidst a hurricane of fire, and which it gives out down below in the form of fused metal, whilst the gases, the dust, the slag of every kind goes off elsewhere. ”

“ stay till this war be at an end, for none can tell what accidents may occur, and war begun without good provision of money beforehand for going through with it, is but as a breathing of strength, and blast that will quickly pass away. ”

“ So when an angel by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. ”

“ Shot thro' his wither'd heart, the fiery blast. ”

“ Far to the north and calls his ruffian blasts:
His blasts obey and quit the howling hill,
The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,15
Disolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. ”

“ From his black ships the sudden lightnings blaze,
And o'er old ocean flash their dreadful rays:
White clouds on clouds inroll'd the smoke ascends,
The bursting tumult heaven's wide concave rends:
The bays and caverns of the winding shore
Repeat the cannon's and the mortar's roar:
The bombs, far-flaming, hiss along the sky
And whirring through the air the bullets fly;
The wounded air, with hollow deafened sound,
Groans to the direful strife, and trembles round.
Now from the Moorish town the sheets of fire,
Wide blaze succeeding blaze, to heaven aspire. ”

“ A burst of flame rose toward the skies with an explosion like that of a hundred cannon; the air burned, ignited by flaming embers, then the frightful lightning disappeared, the brands sank, one after another, into the abyss, where they were extinguished, and save for a slight vibration in the air, after a few minutes had elapsed one would have thought that nothing had happened. ”

“ Another high explosive had burst, and where they had been sitting beside the road a rising column of smoke showed a hole.
"I—I——" whispered Henriette, and her eyes spoke what her lips could not.
But was the road the target? Another scream straight for them and again they thought: "This is death!" The explosion twenty or thirty yards short of the gully covered them with dust. A human something, red and blue, half rolled, half tumbled down the bank at their feet and lay there inert, stunned. ”

“ In an instant a slight explosion took place, and we could hear, notwithstanding the uproar of the guns, a whizzing sound running aft on board the enemy—while almost simultaneously, the most thrilling shrieks of anguish rose up on the air, succeeded by a stunning explosion, which drowned every other sound in its fierce uproar. ”

“ On the earth, torn up by a recent explosion, were lying, here and there, broken beams, crushed bodies of Russians and French, heavy cast-iron cannon overturned into the ditch by a terrible force, half buried in the ground and forever dumb, bomb-shells, balls, splinters of beams, ditches, bomb-proofs, and more corpses, in blue or in gray overcoats, which seemed to have been shaken by supreme convulsions, and which were lighted up now every instant by the red fire of the explosions which resounded in the air. ”

“ He dropped,—more sullenly than wearily,
Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,
And none of us could kick him to his feet;
Just blinked at my revolver, blearily;
—Didn't appear to know a war was on,
Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. ”

“ The thunder and lightning of these two hundred and fifty guns and their shells, whose smoke darkens the sky, are incessant, all pervading, in the air above our heads, on the ground at our feet, [Pg 99] remote, near, deafening, ear-piercing, astounding; and these hailstones are massy iron, charged with exploding fire. And there is little of human interest in a storm; it is an absorbing element of this. You may see flame and smoke, and hurrying men, and human passion at a great conflagration; but they are all earthly and nothing more. ”

“ The bursts were, like volcanoes above the German lines, vomiting upwards a vast column of black smoke which stood solid on the sky- line for a minute or more before being torn down by the wind. Something within me seemed to quake at these engines of destruction, these masses of explosive power sent for the killing of men, invisible there on the ridge, but cowering in fear or lying in their blood.
How queer are the battlefields of life and the minds of men! Down below me, in a field, men were playing a game of football while all this business of death was going on. ”

“ I had hardly spoken when there was a faint muffled boom in the distance and a long, deepening howl, and then a loud explosion that shook the building.
A few minutes after a second shell passed overhead and exploded somewhere in the town.
Then, without the usual warning, there was a roar that seemed to split our heads and an impact that sent us reeling backwards against the wall. The room was filled with dense, pungent smoke and dust that choked and blinded us. Above the violent droning in our ears we could hear the clatter of falling bits of plaster and masonry. ”

“ Explosion after explosion gave greater terror to the scene: buildings were successively blown up in the useless effort to bar its pathway; the fire leaped the chasm and sped on. Fugitives of every age and condition were hurrying through the streets, laden with everything imaginable,—especially looking-glasses, which seem the one important thing to be saved during a fire. My brother and cousin had not yet made their appearance, nor had we seen anything of my brother-in-law, from the other end of the city. ”

“ So we would sit cowering between the gabions, while ever and anon the fiery bombs, often shot at random, came in quick succession through the dark sky of night, making bright and glittering arcs as they sped on their message of destruction, sometimes falling short and bursting in mid-air, or on the earth and throwing up a column of dust and stones, and sometimes fairly into the trenches, scattering death and mutilation among us. ”