SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY

Petulant majesty and terribje rate:

Driving the ground before it, with those round

Feet pounding, beating, covering the ground;

The piston using up the white steam so

You cannot watch it when it come or go; 60

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 65

Yawning, and slowly dropping to a doze.

IV

We who have looked each other in the eyes

This journey long, and trundled with the train,

Now to our separata purposes must rise,

Becoming decent strangers once again. 7°

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. 75

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. 8a

It seems impossible to go and meet

All those strange eyes of people in the street.

But, like some proud unconscious god, the train

Gathers us up and scatters us again.

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