posted
This morning I happened across a wonderful poem by Theodore Roethke. I think it goes to the heart of what makes us love trains.
NIGHT JOURNEY
Now as the train bears west, Its rhythm rocks the earth, And from my Pullman berth I stare into the night While others take their rest. Bridges of iron lace, A suddenness of trees, A lap of mountain mist All cross my line of sight, Then a bleak wasted place, And a lake below my knees. Full on my neck I feel The straining at a curve; My muscles move with steel, I wake in every nerve. I watch a beacon swing From dark to blazing bright; We thunder through ravines And gullies washed with light. Beyond the mountain pass Mist deepens on the pane; We rush into a rain That rattles double glass. Wheels shake the roadbed stone, The pistons jerk and shove, I stay up half the night. To see the land I love.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Henry how strange!!! I was going through my favorites with an eye to clearing out the old ones and came acros a web site I had saved namedThe Poetry Conection and there was this same poem. The date on mine was 2006. Apparently it touched me as it did you.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Nice poem from someone who certainly understands what train travel is all about. Wouldn't you have loved to see David P. Morgan try his hand at poetry. His writing was so descriptive and at times almost lyrical.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I checked out the Poetry Conection to see what the comments were and it is most surprising,at least to me. If you want toseee them check it out.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
One of my favorites from when I was a teenager -- "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn't a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming But I see its cinders red on the sky, And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.
Posts: 614 | From: Merchantville, NJ. USA | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks Henry-- a great choice to put up there for us to read. I know the old "Prairie poet" Carl Sandburg had a few poems with some rail themes; if I can find a good example, I'll post it in this thread. Thanks resor for the Millay again; she had quite a body of work. Interesting private life, as well. Years ago I read a bio of her by Nancy Milford called Savage Beauty.Posts: 588 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
LIMITED I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation. Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people. (All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.) I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: "Omaha."
I guess Amtrak brass must have liked his work too; they named trains 381/382 (Chicago-Quincy) after him.
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
And for those who don't know, Sandburg's hometown is Galesburg, IL, a real railroad town common to the Zephyr, Chief and the 2 Quincy trains.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mr Kisor, I posted "Night Journey" at this website some time ago; I think others posted other poems then, so you might want to hunt up that old strand and see what else is there. I seem to remember someone posting Dickinson's train poem "I like to see it lap the miles" and some others.
I love the other poems posted here too!
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thomas Wolfe ("Look Homeward, Angel") wrote some extraordinarily stirring passages about night trains in his novels and I will see if I can find some of them.
Clearly a lot of us hemisemidemifoamers love writings about trains as much as we do riding them.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
On the outskirts of a little town upon a rise of land that swept back from the railway there was a tidy little cottage of white boards, trimmed vividly with green blinds. To one side of the house there was a garden neatly patterned with plots of growing vegetables, and an arbor for the grapes which ripened late in August. Before the house there were three mighty oaks which sheltered it in their clean and massive shade in summer, and to the other side there was a border of gay flowers. The whole place had an air of tidiness, thrift, and modest comfort.
Every day, a few minutes after two o'clock in the afternoon, the limited express between two cities passed this spot. At that moment the great train, having halted for a breathing-space at the town near by, was beginning to lengthen evenly into its stroke, but it had not yet reached the full drive of its terrific speed. It swung into view deliberately, swept past with a powerful swaying motion of the engine, a low smooth rumble of his heavy cars upon pressed steel, and then it vanished in the cut. For a moment the progress of the engine could be marked by heavy bellowing puffs of smoke that burst at spaced intervals above the edges of the meadow grass, and finally nothing could be heard but the solid clacking tempo of the wheels receding into the drowsy stillness of the afternoon.
Every day for more than twenty years, as the train had approached this house, the engineer had blown on the whistle, and every day, as soon as she heard this signal, a woman had appeared on the back porch of the little house and waved to him. At first she had a small child clinging to her skirts, and now this child had grown to full womanhood, and every day she, too, came with her mother to the porch and waved.
The engineer had grown old and gray in service. He had driven his great train, loaded with its weight of lives, across the land ten thousand times. His own children had grown up, and married, and four times he had seen before him on the tracks the ghastly dot of tragedy converging like a cannon ball to its eclipse of horror at the boiler head -- a light spring wagon filled with children, with its clustered row of small stunned faces; a cheap automobile stalled up the tracks, set with the wooden figures of people paralyzed with fear; a battered hobo walking by the rail, too deaf and old to hear the whistle's warning; and a form flung pas his window with a scream-all this he had seen and known. He had known all the grief, the joy, the peril and the labor such a man could know; he had grown seamed and weathered in his loyal service, and now, schooled by the qualities of faith and courage and humbleness that attended his labor, he had grown old, and had the grandeur and the wisdom these men have.
But no matter what peril or tragedy he had known, the vision of the little house and the women waving to him with a brave free motion of the arm had become fixed in the mind of the engineer as something beautiful and enduring, something beyond all change and ruin, and something that would always be the same, no matter what mishap, grief or error might break the iron schedule of his days.
The sight of this little house and these two women gave him the most extraordinary happiness he had ever known. He had seen them in a thousand lights, a hundred weathers. He had seen them through the harsh light of wintry gray across the brown and frosted stubble of the earth, and he had seen them again in the green luring sorcery of April.
He felt for them and for the little house in which they lived such tenderness as a man might feel for his own children, and at length the picture of their lives was carved so sharply in his heart that he felt that he knew their lives completely, to every hour and moment of the day, and he resolved that one day, when his years of service should be ended, he would go and find these people and speak at last with them whose lives had been so wrought into his own.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
That is a truly great piece by the author of "You Can't Go Home Again." Thomas Wolfe being true to his themes of passage of time and the resultant changes in America. Thanks, Henry.
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Henry, I love this story & know it well, in fact, was just speaking of it to a friend, not in conjunction to train sights but about a house I used to pass from afar . . . Anyway, hope you can put in the rest so the point is made. . . .
Sojourner, from very cccccccold upstate NY (but not as cold as Minnesota!)
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
For those who have not had the opportunity to ride the once a year Spencer - Asheville excursion, Thomas Wolfe described the journey from New York to Asheville in "You Can't Go Home Again" right down to the through New York - Asheville sleeper.
Western North Carolina also lays claim to Carl Sandburg who 'retired' and spent his latter years near where I am now in Flat Rock, NC. Presumably he was attempting to escape the usually more harsh midwestern winters. His home here is now a museum and has been preserved largely the way it was the day Sandburg passed away in the late 1960's.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Good to be back and see that many of the same folks are still, um, railing, about the same stuff. I may have posted these a few years ago when i wrote them, but seeing the poetry topic, i couldn't resist.
Lest I miss the moon The California Zephyr Shakes me from my bed
In the lounge car I stretch and watch the landscape Contrails high above
I forgot to check Walking to the dining car: Is the seat belt sign off?
Song stuck in my head: ‘Do the locomotion with me.’ I dance in my sleep.
Sun through the window Singing rails lull me to sleep Tireless iron horse
Traveling by train It's almost like a road trip But I get to nap
Posts: 300 | From: Denver, CO USA | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ira! Ira! Where HAVE you been? We've been up all night worried about you! Wait till your father gets home from work . . .
But I for one am delighted to see you back. Your verse has been missed.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ira I sent you a pm asking when you were coming back. Glad to see you are here
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
What's new in Denver? How's the California Zephyr doing with it's temporary little Amshack?
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks all for the much appreciated welcome back messages. I had some health issues and some computer issues and life issues and then my mother became ill last year and died last fall.
I work 3 12s - 13s, T/W/TH and then some additional hours on Monday and Friday; and with kids 8 and 13 I have had my hands full. But when I received your thoughtful message a few days ago trainlady, I was touched and decided I wanted to get back in touch with the world, and train folks. I thank you for that message, for reaching out!! Sometimes that is all it takes.
I have not yet been down to see the new station yet. I have a college days friend (of more than 40 years, oh my goodness) who was the Onboard Svc Mgr for the Zephyr for the past few years, so I periodically got some insights into the goings on and plans.
I have been writing some poems, and had some pieces published.
My gosh notelvis - headed for 3000 posts!! Seeems like when I was last here you were at 1000.
GN, Hank! 20th Century, sojourner!! Like getting on the trolley again after being away, and seeing all my old fellow commuters!
Hugs!!
Ira
Posts: 300 | From: Denver, CO USA | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hang in there Ira. I am sorry to hear of your loss. Also I hope you are on the mend. Does some one have a trolley poem for Ira! It is so true...we're like commuters on the same trolley or train.
Posts: 498 | From: New Hope, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
My favorite will always be the following ditty by Ogden Nash:
Oh some like trips in luxury ships, And some in gasoline wagons, And others swear by the upper air And the wings of flying dragons. Let each make haste to indulge his taste, Be it beer, champagne, or cider; My private joy, both man and boy, Is being a railroad rider.
Posts: 133 | From: Canaan, CT | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just a couple of days ago I spotted an airplane heading out for takeoff at the Asheville, NC airport on my commute home.... it was from one of the budget airlines which does not (yet?) serve Asheville.
In emailing back and forth with my wife yesterday, she kept sending me attachments with pictures of various airplanes....."Did it look like this? Maybe it was that?"
Finally, I complained that there had been way too many airplanes pictured on my computer so she sends me a picture of a trolley saying that it was a start and if I behaved I might get some trains later!
Ira - I'm sorry to hear of your loss but am glad to see you back onboard posting verse and soldiering on!
As for 3,000 posts..... gee..... maybe I should get a life.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
