Old Engine Driver

Related poetry:

1. The Driver “What knight or what vassal will be so bold As to plunge in the gulf below? See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold, Already the waters over it flow. The man who can bring back the goblet to me, May keep it henceforward, his own it shall be.” Thus speaks the king, […]...
2. 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, […]...
3. Heartbeat Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart Which safely exists in the center of all things? His giant heartbeat is diverted in us Into little pulses. And his giant grief Is, like his giant jubilation, far too Great for us. And so we tear ourselves away From him time after time, remaining only […]...
4. Patience A wind comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town, And a train, roaring forth, Rushes stampeding down With cries and flying curds Of steam, out of the darkening north. Whither I turn and set Like a needle steadfastly, Waiting ever to get The news that she is free; […]...
5. Adventures Of Isabel Isabel met an enormous bear, Isabel, Isabel, didn’t care; The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous, The bear’s big mouth was cruel and cavernous. The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you, How do, Isabel, now I’ll eat you! Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry. Isabel didn’t scream or scurry. She washed her hands and she […]...
6. Driver Smith ‘Twas Driver Smith of Battery A was anxious to see a fight; He thought of the Transvaal all the day, he thought of it all the night “Well, if the battery’s left behind, I’ll go to the war,” says he, “I’ll go a-driving and ambulance in the ranks of the A. M. C. “I’m fairly […]...
7. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
8. The Tunnel Toil’s a tunnel, there’s no way out For fellows, the like o’ me; A beggar wi’ only a crust an’ a clout At the worst o’ the worst is free; But I work to eat, an’ I eat to work; It’s always the same old round, And I dassent fail for the day I shirk […]...
9. THE SLAVE'S DREAM Beside the ungathered rice he lay, His sickle in his hand; His breast was bare, his matted hair Was buried in the sand. Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, He saw his Native Land. Wide through the landscape of his dreams The lordly Niger flowed; Beneath the palm-trees on the plain Once more […]...
10. Disarmament “Put up the sword!” The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon’s roar, O’er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped With nameless dead; o’er cities starving slow Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe Down which a groaning diapason runs […]...
11. A Kiss One wave falling forward meets another wave falling Forward. Well-water, Hand-hauled, mineral, cool, could be A kiss, or pastures Fiery green after rain, before The grazers. The kiss like a shoal of fish whipped One way, another way, like the fever dreams Of a million monkeys the kiss Carry me closer than your carotid artery […]...
12. Travel 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, […]...
13. Restless It is that perennial immateriality dwelling between living and dying Crouched in the corners and grappling by the hinges Only to remain unseen; We weave our web of what we believe we understand Of the relationship of our acts and events Only to remain misunderstood; From that odd wisp of steam of heated discussions To […]...
14. 46. The Belles of Mauchline IN Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles, The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’; Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess, In Lon’on or Paris, they’d gotten it a’. Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland’s divine, Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw: There’s beauty and fortune to […]...
15. The Land God Forgot The lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lordly mountains soar in scorn As still as death, as stern as fate. The lonely sunsets flame and die; The giant valleys gulp the night; The monster mountains scrape the sky, Where eager stars are diamond-bright. So gaunt against the gibbous moon, Piercing the silence […]...
16. Rutherford McDowell They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me- Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes?- For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow […]...
17. Prayer LET us leave our island woods grown dim and blue; O’er the waters creeping the pearl dust of the eve Hides the silver of the long wave rippling through: The chill for the warm room let us leave. Turn the lamp down low and draw the curtain wide, So the greyness of the starlight bathes […]...
18. Humdrum IF I had a million lives to live and a million deaths to die in a million humdrum worlds, I’d like to change my name and have a new house number to go by each and every time I died and started life all over again. I wouldn’t want the same name every time and […]...
19. The Family Monkey We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather Recklessly with funds carefully gathered since Grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric Or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey Merchant. But the family always planned on a […]...
20. The Newport Railway Success to the Newport Railway, Along the braes of the Silvery Tay, And to Dundee straghtway, Across the Railway Bridge o’ the Silvery Tay, Which was opened on the 12th of May, In the year of our Lord 1879, Which will clear all expenses in a very short time Because the thrifty housewives of Newport […]...
21. All these my banners be All these my banners be. I sow my pageantry In May It rises train by train Then sleeps in state again My chancel all the plain Today. To lose if one can find again To miss if one shall meet The Burglar cannot rob then The Broker cannot cheat. So build the hillocks gaily Thou […]...
22. The Telegraph Operator I will not wash my face; I will not brush my hair; I “pig” around the place There’s nobody to care. Nothing but rock and tree; Nothing but wood and stone, Oh, God, it’s hell to be Alone, alone, alone! Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws Corral me in a ring. I feel as if I was […]...
23. I Keep Six Honest I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. I let them rest […]...
24. Listening I listen to the stillness of you, My dear, among it all; I feel your silence touch my words as I talk, And take them in thrall. My words fly off a forge The length of a spark; I see the night-sky easily sip them Up in the dark. The lark sings loud and glad, […]...
25. Miss Lloyd has now went to Miss Green Miss Lloyd has now sent to Miss Green, As, on opening the box, may be seen, Some years of a Black Ploughman’s Gauze, To be made up directly, because Miss Lloyd must in mourning appear For the death of a Relative dear Miss Lloyd must expect to receive This license to mourn and to grieve, […]...
26. June 19 What is it about the Abyss That tempts the young poet to kiss The air and head for the nearest cliff? This Unreasonable attachment to the bliss Of falling what accounts for it? Unlike the hiss Announcing a reptilian presence, the word Abyss Creates the object of our dread: it exists, it is, Widening like […]...
27. Dilton Marsh Halt Was it worth keeping the Halt open, We thought as we looked at the sky Red through the spread of the cedar-tree, With the evening train gone by? Yes, we said, for in summer the anglers use it, Two and sometimes three Will bring their catches of rods and poles and perches To Westbury, home […]...
28. The Twelve-Forty-Five (For Edward J. Wheeler) Within the Jersey City shed The engine coughs and shakes its head, The smoke, a plume of red and white, Waves madly in the face of night. And now the grave incurious stars Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars. Against the kind and awful reign Of darkness, this our angry train, […]...
29. The Lady's Third Song When you and my true lover meet And he plays tunes between your feet. Speak no evil of the soul, Nor think that body is the whole, For I that am his daylight lady Know worse evil of the body; But in honour split his love Till either neither have enough, That I may hear […]...
30. The Egg and the Machine He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail […]...
31. Frankenstein The monster has escaped from the dungeon Where he was kept by the Baron, Who made him with knobs sticking out from each side of his neck Where the head was attached to the body And stitching all over Where parts of cadavers were sewed together. He is pursued by the ignorant villagers, Who think […]...
32. The Ships of Saint John Where are the ships I used to know, That came to port on the Fundy tide Half a century ago, In beauty and stately pride? In they would come past the beacon light, With the sun on gleaming sail and spar, Folding their wings like birds in flight From countries strange and far. Schooner and […]...
33. Anxiety The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun, The crisping steam of a train Melts in the air, while two black birds Sweep past the window again. Along the vacant road, a red Bicycle approaches; I wait In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy To leap down at our gate. He has passed us by; but […]...
34. True one of Lorca’s best lines Is, “agony, always Agony…” Think of this when you Kill a Cockroach or Pick up a razor to Shave Or awaken in the morning To Face the Sun....
35. I'm Scared Of It All I’m scared of it all, God’s truth! so I am; It’s too big and brutal for me. My nerve’s on the raw and I don’t give a damn For all the “hoorah” that I see. I’m pinned between subway and overhead train, Where automobillies swoop down: Oh, I want to go back to the timber […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. The Pretty Lady He asked the lady in the train If he might smoke: she smiled consent. So lighting his cigar and fain To talk he puffed away content, Reflecting: how delightful are Fair dame and fine cigar. Then from his bulging wallet he A photograph with pride displayed, His charming wife and children three, When suddenly he […]...
38. Song Inviting the influence of a young lady upon the opening year You wear the morning like your dress And are with mastery crown’d; When as you walk your loveliness Goes shining all around: Upon your secret, smiling way Such new contents were found, The Dancing Loves made holiday On that delightful ground. Then summon April […]...
39. Miss Mischievous Miss Don’t-do-this and Don’t-do-that Has such a sunny smile You cannot help but chuckle at Her cuteness and her guile. Her locks are silken floss of gold, Her eyes are pansy blue: Maybe of years to eighty old The best is two. Miss Don’t-do-this and Don’t-do-that To roguishness is fain; To guard that laughter-loving brat […]...
40. A Grain Of Sand If starry space no limit knows And sun succeeds to sun, There is no reason to suppose Our earth the only one. ‘Mid countless constellations cast A million worlds may be, With each a God to bless or blast And steer to destiny. Just think! A million gods or so To guide each vital stream, […]...