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Railway Poems |
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RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE RAILWAY BRITAIN |
The Journey
By running up the staircase once again For some dear trifle almost left behind. At that last moment the unwary mind Forgets the solemn tick of station-time; That muddy lane the feet must climb— The bridge—the ticket—the signal down— Train just emerging beyond the town: The great blue engine panting as it takes The final curve, and grinding on its brakes Up to the platform-edge….The little doors Swing open, while the burly porter roars. The tight compartment fills: our careful eyes Go to explore each other’s destinies. A lull. The station-master waves. The train Gathers, and grips, and takes the rails again, Moves to the shining open land, and soon Begins to tittle-tattle a tame tattoon. Dear gentle monsters, and we ride Pleasantly seated—so we sink Into a torpor on the brink Of thought, or read our books, and understand Half them and half the backward-gliding land: (Trees in a dance all twirling round; Large rivers flowing with no sound; The scattered images of town and field, Shining flowers half concealed.) And, having settled to and equal rate, They swing the curve and straighten to the straight, Curtail their stride and gather up their joints, Snort, dwindle their steam for the noisy points, Leap them in safety, and, the other side, Loop again to and even stride. Like an old ballad, or an endless song, It drones and wimbles its unwearied croon— Croons, drones, and mumbles all the afternoon. Wreathes in great smoke between the earth and sky, It hurtles through them, and you think it must Halt—but it shrieks and sputters them with dust, Cracks like a bullet through their big affairs, Rushes the station-bridge, and disappears Out to the suburb, laying bare Each garden trimmed with pitiful care; Children are caught at idle play, Held a moment, and thrown away. Nearly everyone looks round. Some dignifies inhabitant is found Right in the middle of the commonplace— Buttoning his trousers, or washing his face. In any train I must remember it. The way it smashes through the air; its great Petulant majesty and terrible rate: Driving the ground before it, with those round Feet pounding, eating, covering the ground; The piston using up the white steam so The cutting, the embankment; how it takes the tunnels, and the clatter that it makes; So careful of the train and of the track, Guiding us out, or helping us go back; Breasting its destination: at the close Yawning, and slowly dropping to a doze. This journey long, and trundled with the train, Now to our separate purposes must rise, Becoming decent strangers once again. The little chamber we have made our home In which we so conveniently abode, The complicated journey we have come, Must be an unremembered episode. Our common purpose made us all like friends. How suddenly it ends! A nod, a murmur, or a little smile, Or often nothing, and away we file. I hate to leave you, comrades. I will stay To watch you drift apart and pass away. It seems impossible to go and meet All those strange eyes of people in the street. But, like some proud unconsious god, the train Gathers us up and scatters us again. A poem written by: HAROLD MONRO From a Railway Carriage Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches, And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and grazes; And there is a green for stringing daisies! Here is a cart run away in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone for ever! A poem written by: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON In the Train I am in a long train gliding through Gliding past green fields and gentle grey willows, Past huge dark elms and meadows full of buttercups, And old farms dreaming among mossy apple trees. Now we are in a dingy town of small ugly houses
And tin advertisements of cocoa and Sunlight Soap, Now we are in dreary station built of coffee-coloured wood, Where barmaids in black stand in empty Refreshment Rooms, And shabby old women sit on benches with suitcases. Now we are by sidings where coaltrucks lurk disconsolate
Bright skies overarch us with shining cloud palaces, Sunshine flashes on canals, and then the rain comes, Silver rain from grey skies lashing our window panes; Then it is bright again and white smoke is blowing Gaily over a pale blue sky among the telegraph wires.
Through black, smoky tunnels, over iron viaducts, Past platelayers and signal boxes, factories and warehouses; Afternoon is fading among the tall brick chimney-stacks In the murky Northward, O train, you rush, resolute, invincible, Northward to the night where your banner of flying smoke Will glow in the darkness with burning spark and ruddy flame. Be the train, my life, see the shining meadows,
Glance at the quiet farms, the gardens and shady lanes, But do not linger by them, look at the dingy misery Of all those silly towns, see it, hate it and remember it, But never accept it. You must only accept you own road: The strong unchanging steel rails of necessity, The ardent power that drives you towards night and the unknown terminus. A poem written by: V. DE SOLA PINTO Morning Express Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white,
The travellers stand in pools of wintry light, Offering themselves to morn’s long slanting arrows. The train’s due; porters trundle laden barrows. The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about, Scared people hurry, storming the doors in crowds. The officials seem to waken with a shout, Resolved to hoist and plunder; some to the vans Leap; others rumble the milk in gleaming cans. Boys, indolent-eyed, from baskets leaning back,
Question each face; a man with a hammer steals Stooping from coach to coach; with clang and clack, Touches and tests, and listens to the wheels. Guard sounds a warning whistle, points to the clock With brandished flag, and on his folded flock Claps the last door: the monster grunts; ‘Enough!’ Tightening his load of links with pant and puff. Under the arch, then forth into blue day; Glide the processional windows on their way, And glimpse the stately folk who sit at ease To view the world like kings taking the seas In prosperous weather: drifting banners tell Their progress to the counties; with them goes The clamour of their journeying; while those Who sped them stand to wave a last farewell. A poem written by:
SIEGFRIED SASSOON The Bridge Here, with one leap,
The bridge that spans the cutting; on its back The load Of the main-road, And under it the railway-track. Into the plains they sweep,
Into the solitary plains asleep, The flowing lines, the parallel lines of steel— Fringes with their narrow grass, Into the plains they pass, The flowing lines, like arms of mute appeal. A cry
Prolonged across the earth—a call To the remote horizons and the sky; The whole east rushes down them with its light, And the whole west receives them, with its pall Of stars and night— The flowing lines, the parallel lines of steel. And with the fall
Of darkness, see! The red, Bright anger of the signal, where it flares Like a huge eye that stares On some hid danger in the dark ahead. A twang of wire—unseen The signal drops; and now, instead Of a red eye, a green. Out of the silence grows
An iron thunder---grows, and roars, and sweeps, Menacing! The plain Suddenly leaps, Startled, from its repose— Alert and listening. Now, from the gloom Of the soft distance, loom Three lights and, over them, a brush Of tawny flame and flying spark— Three pointed lights that rush, Monstrous, upon the cringing dark. And nearer, nearer rolls the sound,
Louder the throb and roar of wheels, The shout of speed, the shriek of steam; The sloping bank, Cut into flashing squares, gives back the clank
And grind of metal, while the ground Shudders and the bridge reels— As, with a scream, The train, A rage of smoke, a laugh of fire, A lighted anguish of desire, A dream Of gold and iron, of sound and flight, Tumultuous roars across the night. The train roars past—and , with a cry,
Drowned in a flying howl of wind, Half-stifled in the smoke and blind, The plain, Shaken, exultant, unconfined, Rises, flows on, and follows, and sweeps by, Shrieking, to lose itself in distance and the sky. A poem written by: JOHN REDWOOD ANDERSON The Express After the first powerful plain manifesto
The black statement of pistons, without more fuss But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station. Without bowing and with restrained unconcern She passes the houses which humbly crowd outside, The gasworks and at last the heavy page Of death, printed by gravestones in the cemetery. Beyond the town there lies the open country Where, gathering speed, shed acquires mystery, The luminous self-possession of shops on ocean. It is now she begins to sing—at first quite low Then loud, and at last with a jazzy madness— The song of her whistle screaming at curves, Of deafening tunnels, brakes, innumerable bolts. And always light, aerial, underneath
Goes the elate metre of her wheels.
Steaming through metal landscape on her lines She plunges new eras of wild happiness Where speed throws up strange shapes, broad curves And parallels clean like the steel of guns. At last, further than Beyond the crest of the world, she reaches night Where only a low streamline brightness Of phosphorus on the tossing hills is white. Ah, like a comet through flame she moves entranced Wrapt in her music no bird song, no, nor bough Breaking with honey buds, shall ever equal. A poem written by:
STEPHEN SPENDER The Night Mail This is the night mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door. Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb— The gradient’s against her, but she’s on time. Past cotton grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder, Snorting noisily as she passes Silent miles of wind-bent grasses. Birds turn their heads as she approaches, Stare from the bushes at her blank-faces coaches. Sheep dogs cannot turn her course, They slumber on with paws across. In the farm she passes no one wakes, But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes. Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes, Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen. All In the dark glens, beside the pale-green lochs Men long for news. Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or visit relations, And applications for situations And timid lovers’ declarations, And gossip, gossip from all the nations, News circumstantial, news financial, Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in, Letters with faces scrawled in the margin, Letters from uncles, cousins and aunts, Letters to Letters of condolence to Highlands and Notes from overseas to Written on paper of every hue, The pink, the violet, the white and the blue, The chatty, the catty, the boring , adoring, The cold and official and the heart’s outpouring, Clever, stupid, short and long, The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong. Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters, Or a friendly tea beside the band at Asleep in working Asleep in granite They continue their dreams; But shall wake soon and long for letters, And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart, For who can hear and feel himself forgotten? A poem written by: W.H. Auden Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat There’s a whisper down the line at 11:39
When the Night Mail’s ready to depart, Saying ‘Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble? We must find him or the train can’t start.’ All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster’s daughters They are searching high and low, Saying ‘Skimble where is Skimble for unless he’s very nimble Then the Night Mail just can’t go.’ At 11:42 then the signal’s nearly due And the passengers are frantic to a man— Then Skimble will appear and he’ll saunter to the rear: He’s been busy in the luggage van! He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes And the signal goes ‘All Clear!’ And we’re off at last for the northern part Of the Northern Hemisphere! Of the Sleeping Car Express. From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards He will supervise them all, more or less. Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces Of the travellers in the First and in the Third; He establishes control by a regular patrol And he’d know at once if anything occurred. He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking And it’s certain that he doesn’t approve Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet When Skimble is about and on the move. You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks! He’s a Cat that cannot be ignored; So nothing goes wrong on the Northern Mail When Skimbleshanks is aboard. With your name written up on the door. And the berth is very neat with a newly folded sheet And there’s not a speck of dust on the floor. There is every sort of light—you can make it dark or bright; There’s a handle that you turn to make a breeze. There’s a funny little basin you’re supposed to wash your face in And a crank to shut the window if you sneeze. Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly ‘Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?’ But Skimble’s just behind him and was ready to remind him, For Skimble won’t let anything go wrong. And when you creep into your cosy berth And pull up the counterpane, You ought to reflect that it’s very nice To know that you won’t be bothered by mice— You can leave all that to the Railway Cat, The Cat of the Railway Train! Every now and then he has a cup of tea With perhaps a drop of Scotch while he’s keeping on the watch, Only stopping here and there to catch a flea. You were fast asleep at That he was walking up and down the station; You were sleeping all the while he was busy at Where he greets the stationmaster with elation. But you saw him at If there’s anything they ought to know about: When you get to Gallowgate there you do not have to wait— For Skimbleshanks will help you to get out! He gives you a wave of his long brown tail Which says: ‘I’ll see you again! You’ll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail The Cat of the Railway Train.’ A poem written by: T.S. ELIOT The Train A green eye—and a red—in the dark
Thunder—smoke—and a spark. It is there—it is here—flashed by.
Whither will the wild thing fly? It is rushing, tearing thro’ the night,
Rending her gloom in its flight.
It shatters her silence with shrieks.
What is it the wild thing seeks? Alas! For it hurries away.
Them that are fain to stay. Hurrah! For it carries home
Lovers and friends that roam. A poem written by: MARY E. COLERIDGE Adlestrop Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came On the bare platform, What I saw Was Adlestrop—only the name And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Then the high cloudlets in the sky. And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the Birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. A poem written by: EDWARD THOMAS Homecoming to Cornwall: December 1942 A landslide on the line, the train diverted
Back up the valley of the red Exe in spate Rich with Meadows, swirling round the wooded bends, The December quality of light on boles of trees, Black and shining out of the gathering dark, The sepia brushwood, against the western skies Filtering the last watercolour light. (Why should the eyes fill with tears, as if One should not look upon the like again? So many eyes have seen that coign of wood, That curve of river, the pencil screen of trees,) I fall asleep; the train feels slowly round The unfamiliar northern edge of It is night and we are entering The sense of excitement wakens me, to see Launceston perched on a shoulder like The young moon white above the moving clouds. The train halts in the valley where monks prayed, Under the castle keep the And Edward the Black Prince visited. We stop At every wayside halt, a signal-box,
An open waiting shed, a shrub or two, A friendly voice out of the night, a lamp— Egloskerry, Tresmeer and Otterham— And out upon the shaven moonlit moor. The seawind blows from the Atlantic coast, A seabird sails over, whitens in the moon: The little scattered houses crouch for shelter, A few withies about them, a stunted elm Or showl of ash or thorn, a pool that gleams In the strange light upon the downs That look towards Rowtor where King Arthur hunted The Where all day long the noise of battle rolled Among the mountains by the winter sea. In the mind’s eye I see the old great poet Search still for Arthur’s grave in this waste land Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwell. All is bare and silent: no light shows: The white sheep crop on the glimmering pastures; There is the unforgettable smell of the moor, Of the seawind on a hundred nameless herbs, On bracken and gorse, on heather and fern and ivy (the sick man leans upon the window, weeping
He knows not why, at his home-coming After many weary months of weakness.) In the moment of breathing in my native land I remember to hate: the thousand indignities, The little humiliations, the small insults From small people, the hidden emnities, The slights that hurt the sensibilities Of a child that, longing for affection, learned To reward envy with contempt, to speak The biting word that freezes sympathy, The instinctive expectation of a blow To pride or self-respect or decency; And as a man to mark the averted gaze of petty shopkeepers on their dunghill pavements; The meanness of the moneyed middle-class, The slow passivity of the workers that know Not their own interest or their enemies. But, most of all, the vast misunderstanding That divides me from my people I lament, The self-willed folly that condemned me long To opening the eyes of fools, the task Of a Tregeagle or a Sisyphus, The million fond stupidities that make A modern electorate. Alone in the night, At the window looking over the moonlit land, Alone with myself I could beat my head against The walls for rage and impotent defeat. Quick! Shut the window. Pull down the blind Over the lovely landscape. Shut out the sight! A poem written by: SIEGFRIED SASSOON The Runaway Engine Once there was a little engine who was full of discontent.
He didn’t like the work he did or the journey he was sent. And he grumbled to himself as he puffed his way uphill, “I think it’s time I had a change; I really feel quite ill.” “I’ve had enough of trucks of coal and nasty smelly fish,
And to have a more important job is the one thing that I wish, And just because I’m little they don’t listen when I speak, But I’ll make them hear me this time if it takes me all week.” So he snorted and he blew, and he made a lot of din,
But not the slightest notice did his driver take of him. This so annoyed the engine that with rage he really shook, And then he gave his driver a nasty, horrid look. “I’ll teach him not to listen,” he stuttered through his steam.
He stamped his wheels with temper and really made a scene. “ I won’t put up with this,” he said, “another single day! There’s only one thing left to do—I’ll have to run away.” So that night when none could see him, he crept out of his shed,
And tired of going uphill went the other way instead. “Now this is rather fun,” he said, and gave a little hop, But he soon found to his horror that he simply couldn’t stop. Faster, faster went his wheels, his whistle blew with fright.
He went so fast he left the rails—how he wished that he could stop, But he went right in the water with a simply frightful plop! He lay there and he gurgled for he couldn’t even shout,
And he said that he was sorry when they came and pulled him out. And now he whistles gaily as he does his work each day, For he knows he’d rather stay at home than ever run away. A poem written by: ANON
To a Locomotive in Winter Thee for my recitative,
Thee in driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, they measured dual throbbing and they beat convulsive, Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel, Thy ponderous side-bows, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, strutting at thy sides, Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance. Thy great protruding heat-light fixed in front, Thy long pale, floating vapour-pennants, tinged with delicate purple, The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack, Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels, Thy train of cars behind, obedient , merrily following, Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering; Type of the modern-emblem of motion and power-pulse of the continent, For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here I see thee, With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow, By day thy warming ringing bell to sound its notes, By night thy silent signal lamps to swing. Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through by chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like and earthquake rousing all, Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding, (No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,) Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills returned, Launched o’er the prairies wide, across the lakes, To the free skies upent and glad and strong. A poem written by: WATT WHITMAN Seen from the Train Somewhere between Crewkerne
And Yeovil it was. On the left of the line Just as the crinkled hills unroll To the plain. A church on a small green knoll— A limestone church, And above the church Cedar boughs stretched like hands that yearn To protect or to bless. The whole Stood up, antique and clear
As a cameo, from the vale. I swear It was not a dream. Twice, thrice, had I found it Chancing to look as my train wheeled round it But this time I passed, Though I gazed as I passed All the way down the valley, that knoll was not there, Nor the church, nor the trees it moulded. What came between to unsight me?…..
But suppose, only suppose there might be A secret look it the landscape’s eye Following you as you hasten by And you have your chance— Two or three chances At most—to hold and interpret it rightly, Or it is gone for aye. There was a time when men
Would have called it a vision said that sin Had blinded me since to a heavenly fact. Well, I have neither invoked nor faked Any church in the air, And little I care Whether or no I shall see it again. But blindly my heart is racked When I think how, not twice or thrice,
But year after year in another’s eyes I have caught the look that I missed today Of the church, the knoll, the cedars—a ray Of the faith, too, they stood for, The hope they were food for The love they prayed for, the facts beyond price— And turned my eyes away. A poem written by: VICTOR MASGRAVE
The Song of the Engine When you travel on the railway,
And the line goes up a hill, Just listen to the engine As it pulls you with a will. Though it goes very slowly It sings this little song. “I think I can, I think I can,” And so it goes along. But later on the Journey,
When you’re going down a hill, The train requires no pulling, And the engine’s singing still. If you listen very quietly You will hear this little song, “I thought I could, I thought I could!” And so it speeds along. A poem written by: CHRISTINE WEATHERLY
The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay! With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array And your central girders, which seem to the eye To be almost towering to the sky. The greatest wonder of the day, And a great beautification to the River Tay, Most beautiful to be seen, Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. That has caused the Emperor of Brazil to leave His home far away, incognito in his dress, And view thee ere he passed along en route to Inverness. The longest of the present day That has ever crossed o'er a tidal river stream, Most gigantic to be seen, Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. Which will cause great rejoicing on the opening day And hundreds of people will come from far way, Also the Queen, most gorgeous to be seen, Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. And prosperity to Provost Cox, who has given Thirty thousand pounds and upwards away In helping to erect the Bridge of the Tay, Most handsome to be seen, Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. I hope that God will protect all passengers By night and by day, And that no accident will befall them while crossing The Bridge of the Silvery Tay, For that would be most awful to be seen Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. And prosperity to Messrs Bouche and Grothe, The famous engineers of the present day, Who have succeeded in erecting the Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, Which stands unequalled to be seen Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. A poem written by: WILLIAM TOPAZ McGONAGALL The Metropolitan Railway Baker Street Station Buffet Early Electric! Sit you down and see, Smoothly from Harrow, passing Preston Road, And all that day in murky London Wall While she, in arc-lit Oxford Street adrift, Early Electric! Maybe even here Cancer has killed him. Heart is killing her. A poem written by:
SIR JOHN BETJEMIN Pershore Station, or A Liverish Journey First Class The train at Pershore station was waiting that Sunday night Gas light on the platform, in my carriage electric light, Gas light on frosty evergreens, electric on Empire wood, The Victorian world and the present in a moment's neighbourhood. There was no one about but a conscript who was saying good-bye to his love On the windy weedy platform with the sprinkled stars above When sudden the waiting stillness shook with the ancient spells Of an older world than all our worlds in the sound of the Pershore bells. They were ringing them down for Evensong in the lighted abbey near, Sounds which had poured through apple boughs for seven centuries here. And I thought of her left behind me in the Herefordshire hills. I remembered her defencelessness as I made my heart a stone Till she wove her self-protection round and left me on my own. And plunged in a deep self pity I dreamed of another wife And lusted for freckled faces and lived a separate life. One word would have made her love me, one word would have made her turn But the word I never murmured and now I am left to burn. Evesham, Oxford and London. The carriage is new and smart. I am cushioned and soft and heated with a deadweight in my heart. A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN The Railway StationGreat Central Railway: Sheffield Victoria to Banbury Unmitigated England Came swinging down the line That day the February sun Did crisp and crystal shine. Dark red at Kirkby Bentinck stood A steeply gabled farm 'Mid ash trees and a sycamore In charismatic calm. A village street - a manor house - A church - then, tally ho! We pounded through a housing scheme With tellymasts a-row, Where cars of parked executives Did regimented wait Beside administrative blocks Within the factory gate. She waved to us from Hucknall South As we hooted round a bend, From a curtained front-window did The diesel driver's friend. Through cuttings deep to Nottingham Precariously we wound; The swallowing tunnel made the train Seem London's Underground. Above the fields of Leicestershire On arches we were born The thunder of the Quorn; And silver shone the steeples out Above the barren boughs; Colts in a paddock ran from us But not the solid cows; And quite where Rugby Central is Does only Rugby know. We watched the empty platform wait And sadly saw it go. By now the sun of afternoon Showed ridge and furrow shadows And shallow unfamiliar lakes Stood shivering in the meadows. Is Woodford church or Hinton church The one I ought to see? Or were they both too much restored In 1883? I do not know. Towards the west A trail of glory runs And we leave the old Great Central line For Banbury and buns. A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN Distant View of a Provincial Town Beside those spires so spick and span St. Aidan's with the prickly nobs
St. Mary's where the Rector preached And that United Benefice The old Great Western Railway shakes A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN Love in a Valley Take me, Lieutenant, to that Deep down the drive go the cushioned rhododendrons, Fling wide the curtains! that's a Surrey sunset A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN Monody on the Death of Adlersgate Street Station <>Snow falls in the buffet of Aldersgate station, Soot hangs in the tunnel in clouds of steam. City of Let your steepled forest of churches be my theme. > Alley and courtyard empty and cobbled mews, Till tingle tang the bell of St. Mildred's Bread Street Summoned the sermon taster to high box pews, > With answering echoes from heavy commercial walls Till all were drowned as the sailing clouds went singing On the roaring flood of a twelve-voiced peal from Paul's. > Out into marshy meadow-land flowed the Fleet And the walled-in City of Had a tinkling mass house in every cavernous street. > Would take me into its darkness from College Hill, Or Christ Church Newgate Street with Would be late for Mattins and ringing insistent still.
Last of the east wall sculpture, a cherub gazes Snow falls in the buffet of Aldersgate station, A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN From the Great Western These small West Country towns where year by year A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN Matlock Bath <>From Matlock Bath's half-timbered station I see the black dissenting spire Thin witness of a congregation, Stone emblem of a Handel choir; In blest Bethesda's limpid pool Comes treacling out of Sunday School. > The sounds are sweet as strawberry jam I raise mine eyes unto the hill, The beetling Heights of Abraham; The branchy trees are white with rime In Matlock Bath this winter-time, > Huge cliffs hang sunless ere they fall, A tossed and stony ocean nearing The moment to o'erwhelm us all Eternal Father, strong to save, How long wilt thou suspend the wave? > Of intersecting Lovers' Walks Are rolled across by limestone breakers, Whole woodlands snapp'd like cabbage stalks? O God, our help in ages past, How long will Speedwell Cavern last? In this dark dale I hear the thunder Deep in their Nonconformist setting Perhaps it's this that makes me shiver A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN Dilton Marsh Halt Was it worth keeping the Halt open, Yes, we said, for in summer the anglers use it, There isn't a porter. The platform is made of sleepers. O housewife safe in the comprehensive churning And when all the horrible roads are finally done for, A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN A Mind's Journey to Diss Dear Mary, A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN A Lament for Moira McCavendish Through the midlands of And bright in the sun shone the emerald plain; Though loud sang the birds on the thorn-bush and teasel They could not be heard for the sound of the train. The roll of the railway made musing creative: I thought of the colleen I soon was to see With her wiry black hair and grey eyes of the native, Sweet Moira McCavendish, acushla machree. Her brother's wee cabin stands distant from Tallow A league and a half, where the Blackwater flows, And the musk and potato, the mint and the mallow Do grow there in beauty, along with the rose. 'Twas smoothly we raced through the open expansion Of rush-covered levels and gate-lodge and gate And the ruined demesne and the windowless mansion Where once the oppressor had revelled in state. At Castletownroche, as the prospect grew hillier, I saw the far mountains to Moira long-known Till I came to the valley and townland familiar With the Protestant church standing locked and alone. O vein of my heart! upon No face was to greet me, so freckled and white; As the diesel slid out, leaving still desolation, The McCavendish ass-cart was nowhere in sight. For a league and a half to the Blackwater river I tramped with my bundle her cabin to see And herself by the fuchsias, her young lips a-quiver Half-smiling, half-weeping a welcome to me. Och Moira McCavendish! the fangs of the creeper Have struck at the thatch and thrust open the door The couch in the garden grows ranker and deeper Than musk and potato which bloomed there before. Flow on, you remorseless and salmon-full waters! What care I for prospects so silvery fair? The heart in me's dead, like your sweetest of daughters, And I would that my spirit were lost on the air. A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMIN The Whitsun Weddings That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till about One –twenty on the sunlit Saturday Did my three-quarters-empty train pull our, All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense Of being in a hurry gone. We ran Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence The river’s level drifting breadth began, Where sky and All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept For miles inland, A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept. Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and Canals with floatings of industrial froth; A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped And rose: and now and then a smell of grass Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth Until the next town, new and nondescript, Approached with acres of dismantled cars. At first, I didn’t notice what a noise The weddings made Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys The interest of what’s happening in the shade, And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls I took for porters larking with the mails, And went on reading. Once we started, though, We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls In parodies of fashion, heels and veils, All posed irresolutely, watching us go, As if out on the end of an event Waving goodbye To something that survived it. Struck, I leant More promptly out next time, more curiously, And saw it all again in different terms: The fathers with broad belts under their suits And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat; An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms, The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes, The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that Marked off the girls unreally from the rest. Yes, from the cafes And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days Were coming to an end. All down the line Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood around; The last confetti and advice were thrown, And, as we moved, each face seemed to define Just what it saw departing: children frowned At something dull; fathers had never known Success so huge and wholly farcical; The women shared The secret like a happy funeral; While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared At a religious wounding. Free at last, And loaded with the sum of all they saw, We hurried towards Now fields were building-plots and poplars cast Long shadows over major roads, and for Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem Just long enough to settle hats and say I nearly died, A dozen marriages got under way. They watched the landscape, sitting side by side <!--[if !supportLists]-->- <!--[endif]-->An Odeon went past, a cooling tower, And someone running up to bowl – and none Thought of the others they would never meet Or how their lives would all contain this hour. I thought of Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat: There we were aimed. And as we raced across Bright knots of rail Past standing Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail Travelling coincidence; and what it held Stood ready to be loosed with all the power That being changed can give. We slowed again, And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain. A poem written by: PHILIP LARKIN The darkness brings no quiet here, the light No waking: ever on my blinded brain The flare of lights, the rush, and cry, and strain, The engines' scream, the hiss and thunder smite: I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight, Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain: I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train Move labouring out into the bourneless night. So many souls within its dim recesses, So many bright, so many mournful eyes: Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and guesses; What threads of life, what hidden histories, What sweet or passionate dreams and dark distresses, What unknown thoughts, what various agonies! A poem written by: ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN
Quintinshill Blacksyke Wood awakens still to the sound of a blackbird's merry trill. She chose the place - she set the scene, near quiet, peaceful In long descent the "Special" roars, With a roaring, deafening, shattering thud C R A S H A second fearful rending sound The kindled coaches blaze alight; Survivors laid upon a field Lost with the men - the Battalion Roll, There live yet men who remember well the piercing screams and mangled hell; Hardly anything now remains. Just empty loops and ghosts of trains. A poem written by: DENIS R. MUIR
The Liverpool Overhead Railway Two intrepid mountaineers with an old discarded rope, To climb the massive iron bridge, towering in the sky, The beginning of this brave assault, mostly went our way. The last few thousand feet, got really, really tough. “Remember your training ” was my reply. He was trapped by the ice on the cliff’s outcrop. With faux contortions of frostbite face, Some desperate swings from my trusty ice axe Like a crack unit of a well-equipped army, As we shared our jam smothered bread, We are famous now they’ll surely say, We scratched with a nail through flaky paint, On this fine day in ’56 stood heroes A poem written by: JIM LLOYD
Faintheart in a Railway Train At ten there passed me by the sea, At twelve a town of smoke and smirch, At two a forest of oak and birch, And then, on a platform, she: A radiant stranger, who saw not me. I queried, "Get out to her do I dare?"But I kept my seat in my search for a plea, And the wheels moved on. O could it but be That I had alighted there! A poem written by: THOMAS HARDY
At the Railway Station, Upways For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!’ Spoke up the pitying child— A little boy with a violin At the station before the train came in,— ‘But I can play my fiddle to you, And a nice one ’tis, and good in tone!’ The constable looked, and he smiled too, As the fiddle began to twang; And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang With grimful glee: ‘This life so free Is the thing for me!’ And the constable smiled, and said no word, As if unconscious of what he heard; And so they went on till the train came in— The convict, and boy with the violin. A poem written by: THOMAS HARDY
On the Departure Platform We kissed at the barrier; and passing through She left me, and moment by moment got Smaller and smaller, until to my view She was but a spot; A wee white spot of muslin fluff That down the diminishing platform bore Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough To the carriage door. Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers, Behind dark groups from far and near, Whose interests were apart from ours, She would disappear, Then show again, till I ceased to see That flexible form, that nebulous white; And she who was more than my life to me Had vanished quite. We have penned new plans since that fair fond day, And in season she will appear again— Perhaps in the same soft white array— But never as then ! —‘And why, young man, must eternally fly A joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well?’ —O friend, nought happens twice thus; why, I cannot tell! A poem written by: THOMAS HARDY
The Railway Train I like to see it lap the miles, Around a pile of mountains, To fit its sides, and crawl between, And neigh like Boanerges; A poem written by: EMILY DICKINSON Middlesex Gaily into Ruislip Gardens Well cut Windsmoor flapping lightly, Gentle Brent, I used to know you Parish of enormous hayfields A poem written by: SIR JOHN BETJEMAN
Will the Lights be White? Oft, when I feel my engine swerve, The blue light marks the crippled car, For who can speak for those who dwell A poem written by: CY WARMAN The Flyer Across the hill and down the dell, Out o'er the prairie, cold and gray, The engine seems to fairly float, Upon the seat the engineer, A poem written by: CY WARMAN Clickety Clack Clickety click! as out of town He likes to look at her face so fair, Over the river and down the dell, Clickety click, and down the track A poem written by: CY WARMAN The Desert Mail When your feet have strayed from the everglade Through the racing years there the engineers When the gaunt wolves howl where the spirits prowl -- A poem written by: CY WARMAN Little Train to Lynton I think I am asleep And of this dream, what part is fog, what part is steam? For no murmur emits from the Taw and its swifting tide As a dense sea fret paints a dawn vignette In which the standard gauge and the impudent must co-abide Eerily greying Making surreal the clank of coal being trimmed Where semaphores, by the damp, are dimmed I board the little train to Lynton I yearn to start the climb To tranquil height, to soothing view, and upland light A pea-whistle trills and a green flag is waved at last With a late slamming door there’s a creak ‘neath the floor And all that was fixed through my window is now drifting past The wooden carriagettes, awakened, now rock and stretch and yaw A lullaby enunciates each of the little rail joints And wheels chirrup, like sparrows, on points Clickety, clickety, clickety-clack, begins a joyous day We jog through fog on rickety track by Southern Railway On two-foot gauge, or near enough, past chunky crossing gates Eurhythmic Lew’s echoing chuff now self-concatenates Jiggle, joggle, by fidget’s trail, Lew wends us out of town An alley sally on midget rail, reluctant to slow down In Pilton yard, through mist espied, stands Exe out-shopped and dapper By glassy Yeo, still at our side, we pass a halt called Snapper Wobble, wooble, wobble tug, our loco has willpower Commotion in motion, tenacious pug, diminutive steam power She toots of Newnes, philanthropist, upon whose tall creation… Of arches spanning a lake of mist we climb to Chelfham station Our train now comes to rest Above the dew, beneath a sky of pastel blue Lew’s driver hands the tablet to leafy Chelfham’s porter And I gaze through the glass, watch the Up train pass On this amber Autumn day, in this shady sylvan quarter Where the telegraph dings like a tapped wine glass Where white scud and grey eddy enrobe the trees And a robin sings, my ears, to please How sweet this little line to Lynton I lower the window glass From upholstered nook, I lean outside, and take a look The Up train’s green and yellow carriages are really quite replete With their handles and vents, they maintain a pretence And mimic their larger cousins with whom they frequently meet So conceived to be roomy that, in consequence They overhang each rail by a foot or two And inner expanse, thereby, accrue Dapple, dapple, let’s dapple the light, the whispering trees all say Where Lew must grapple with all her might, to get us under way Forever climbing, never straight, this footpath made of steel Is not for feet, but footplate, greased axle-box, and wheel Bratton Fleming awakens At sibilant Lew, admirers gaze, as admirers do They point to her tongues of flame, wince and plug their ears For with pressure increased in this iron beast Her safety valve blows and its serrated rasp is all one hears Candy-floss steam is licked by a sun aflame in the east While departure sends acrobatic wisps cart-wheeling by Then makes dark, with sackcloth, the sky Percuss, percuss, the bogies discuss Wistlandpound’s emerald clime “More fun, this run, than any bus” they argue their case in rhyme And every sight, with eyes agog, must I be sure to observe Lest a friendly nudge, or cajoling jog, be aimed at my reserve Expansive Blackmoor station Where couplings chink as our loco halts to take a drink Where the station house is a chalet of homely air At its side abiding, a coach in a siding Oh, if quintessential Along with all the verdant scape of the line I’m riding A lower quadrant semaphore nods at our train With the “right away” we’re off, again Wiffle, waffle, piffle and prance, Lew scoffs at a downward mile Her sniffle and skiffle makes the carriages dance, life is easy for a while But another climb begins to loom, and Lew’s skiffle rods become… A marching band through Parracombe, of gryating mace and drum At Upon the crest, a station higher than all the rest For Southern Green was never painted in a loftier place than this Nor a quieter one, where trains still run No junction, as planned, and no village amid this rural bliss “Alight here for a doze, to sigh, and get nothing done” Yet so much to view beyond these narrow gauge rails The Bristol Channel, craggy cliffs, and Snaking and shaking, judiciously braking, to Lynton our train now descends It scurries, it hurries, it sets the ground quaking, convinced that the line never ends But Caffyns halt, perched high on the moor, warns that there’s not far to go From a hillside ledge with views galore, I gaze at the Lyn gorge below Ahead, the buffer stops A judder speaks, it shakes my hand, and kisses my cheeks Bidding goodbye like a jolly aunt with whom I must sadly part I vacate my seat and take to my feet For in Lynton now is a soul with a glowing heart Whose port-hole eyes are bright with orange heat It is journey’s end, but I am not sad, as I sit on a churn Because my ticket reads, in bold type: “RETURN” A poem written by: HORACE JAY Royal Train: The Record Dash of the "City of Bath" Did you see the Express Royal Burdened with its precious load? Did you hear the distant roaring As she dashed along the road? Well may Pressmen do it honour Sing its praises far and wide ‘Tis a record which I’m thinking Long a record will abide But whilst voicing loud this triumph Think of “Driver Burden” who Has placed us in the vanguard Shown the world what we can do He who stood with hand on lever Peering through the engine’s eye And his gallant mate who fired her Kept up steam to make her fly Graceful, ready for the fray There she stood in yonder bay Guard had scarce his whistle sounded Than from Paddington she bounded With good wishes from the throng Starting thus her journey long Louder grew her quick’ning stroke Nigh enveloped in her smoke Down through Ealing, Southall, Hayes She her speed began to raise And now got her swing by now Crashing ‘neath the bridge at On through Taplow, running fine She was well within her time Signals off for miles ahead Dashing now through Maidenhead On went Burden, nothing dreading Till with lightening flash through She at last for Didcot made Flew through there at just a shade… Over seventy miles an hour Followed by a gravel shower Paper and exhausted steam Every platform sweeping clean On still on, she bore us down Till we sighted At whose usual platform crowd Burden whistled long and loud She indeed was running hard As we passed that busy yard Joyful here her builders stood Give a cheer, the best they could Of the run they caught a sight Viewed with pride, as well they might Hardly had we heard their cheer Than we were of Rushey clear Still at this torrential speed Onward dashed this iron steed Till you scarce could see her crank As she flew down Dauntsey bank Full steam on through Chippenham Driver Burden made her hum Peering ever through her eye Soon to Corsham said good-bye By his side stood an Inspector Woe then to the man who checked her! Thus she swept along her path Through Box Tunnel, down to When we’d passed those ancient piles She had averaged seventy miles Seeming bent on record-breaking Fast was now for And was doing all she could As she plunged through Fox’s Wood Snatching water from the troughs Roaring through St Anne’s she goes Then with sharp but mighty swoop Missing Now once more upon the main Onward ploughed the Royal train Shutting thus old “Long the Western’s beauteous route Pouring volumes from her funnel She is lost in Bourton tunnel Nigh half-hour before her time Out she shoots at seventy-nine Passing Weston on the right Soon of it was out of sight Then for thirty miles or more Running now at eighty-four So terrific was the rate That I could not calculate What the speed was when she flew Down through It was growing whilst we dashed ‘Tween those station platforms crashed Burden now a name had won her On he forced that hundred tonner ‘Neath a scorching noon-day sun Heading now for Where the farmer looked aghast Stood erect as we flew past Fixed his gaze and shook his head Waved his hat, thus good-bye said Wished his father was alive To have seen this mighty dive But I must not stay my pen Tell I must what happened then With what speed she climbed the bank How for twenty miles she sank Until like some hunted boar Down through Past its old Cathedral tower Still at seventy miles an hour Though you scarce could feel her rock As we eyed that station clock Not a joint or bolt was slack ‘Long that grand unequalled track Nor was there the slightest jolt When like some fierce thunderbolt She dashed on still on, pell-mell Swift through many a flowery dell Where the rabbit, filled with dread Scared by her, for safety fled Rattling now through wood and glen Loud awaking echoes, then Out to catch the distant view Of the Channel, on she flew Swinging now six miles or more Gliding swift along its shore Where the children on the sands Shouting loudly, clapped their hands Then as though she’d caught the breeze Leaving Dawlish in the trees On, yet on and on she rushed Down through Miles they still as quarters seemed As she now through Now fast adding to her wake Shorter thus my song to make I must rest myself content When I’ve told how on through Brent She swept round each narrow ridge That abound near Ivybridge Crashing, dashing, till at last Plympton she in safety passed How with nigh an hour in hand Burden brought her to a stand Having thus her freightage hurled East to West and beat the World Midst cheers as well you know ‘Neath the shade of Plymouth Hoe A poem written by: MR MOSS Overture to a Dance of Locomotives Fierce-throated beauty ! Men with picked voices chant the names The rubbing feet Covertly the hands of a great clock A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing two--twofour--twoeight! Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms. This way ma'am! Lights from the concrete Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two! Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating --rivers are tunneled; trestles A poem written by: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
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