Song Of A Train

A monster taught To come to hand Amain, As swift as thought Across the land The train. The song it sings Has an iron sound; Its iron wings Like wheels go round. Crash under bridges, Flash over ridges, And vault the downs; The road is straight -- Nor stile, nor gate; For milestones -- towns! Voluminous, vanishing, white, The steam plume trails; Parallel streaks of light, THe polished rails. Oh, who can follow? The little swallow, The trout of the sky: But the sun Is outrun, And Time passed by. O'er bosky dens, By marsh and mead, Forest and fens Embodied speed Is clanked and hurled; O'er rivers and runnels; And into the earth And out again In death and birth That know no pain, For the whole round world Is a warren of railway tunnels. Hark! hark! hark! It screams and cleaves the dark; And the subterranean night Is gilt with smoky light. Then out again apace It runs its thundering race, The monster taught To come to hand Amain, That swift as thought Speeds through the land The train.