Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. FROM TURIN TO PARIS, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography First Line: Tireless, hour after hour, over mountain plains and rivers Last Line: And the glitter and the roar already, and the rush of the life of paris. Subject(s): Paris, France; Railroads; Tourists; Travel; Railways; Trains; Journeys; Trips | ||||||||
TIRELESS, hour after hour, over mountains plains and rivers, The express train rushes on. The shadows change, the sun and moon rise and set; Day fades into night, and night into day, The great cities appear and disappear over the horizon. On through the hot vineyards of Piedmont the express train rushes; The great-limbed Ligurian peasant sprawls asleep in the third-class carriage which has been put on for a portion of the course; The calm grave country girls droop their lids to slumber; The huge unwieldy friar with elephantine limbs, small eyes, and snout like an ant-eaternot a particle of religion in his whole bodygazes blankly out of the window; And the young mother with black lace on her head looks after her little brood. On through the hot vineyards in the fierce afternoon the express train rushesthe villages on the hill-tops twinkle through the blazethe fireman opens the furnace-door of the engine and stokes up again and again. The first-class passengers dispose themselves as best they may, with blinds down, on the hot and dusty cushions; The respectable and cold-mutton-faced English gentleman and his wife and daughters, the blase Chinaman with yellow fan, the little Persian boy so brown, lying asleep against the side of his instructor, The deeply-lined large-faced shaven old Frenchman, the Italian artist, bearded, nearing forty years old, with expressive mouth and clear discerning eyes, Dispose themselves as best they may. The sides of the carriages lie open, like glass. The young priest fresh from College recites his even song, then addresses himself to the conversion of his Protestant fellow-travelerI see his winning manners at first, and then his intimidatory frowns followed by threats of hell-fire; The group of laughing girls in one compartment are talking three or four languages; In another an Italian officer leans close in conversation to a yellow-haired young woman, and touches her lightly every now and then on the arm; In a third sits a bedizened old hag, purveyor of human fleshwith great greedy clever eyes (once beautiful under their still long lashes), deep wrinkles (yet not one of wisdom or of sorrow), and thin cruel lips; On a frequent errand from London to Italy she travels; I hear her pious expressions as she talks to the lady sitting opposite to herI note her habit of turning up her eyes as of one shocked; And still the train rushes on, and the fields fly past and the vineyards. 2 Dusk closes down, and the train rushes on and on; The mountains stand rank behind rank, and valley beyond valley, Towering up and up over the clouds even into broad day again. Lo! the great measureless slopes with receding dwindling perspective of trees and habitations; Here at their foot the trellised gardens, and rivers roaring under the stone bridges of towns, And there the far ledges where the tumbled roofs of tiny hamlets are perchedthe terrace after terrace of vine and wheat, the meadows with grass and flowers; The zigzag path, the lonely chalet, the patches of cultivation almost inaccessible, The chestnut woods, and again the pinewoods, and beyond again, where no trees are, the solitary pasturages; [The hidden upper valleys bare of all but rocks and grassthey too with their churches and villages;] And beyond the pasturages, aye beyond the bare rocks, through the great girdle of the cloudshigh high in air The inaccessible world of ice, scarce trodden of men. 3 There the rich sunlight dwells, calm like an aureole of glory, over a thousand forms of snow and rock clear-cut delaying. But below in the dusk along the mountain-bases the train climbs painfully, Crossing the putty-colored ice-cold streams again and again with tardy wheel; Till the great summit tunnel is reached, then tilting forward, With many a roar and rush and whistle and scream from gallery to gallery It fliesrolls like a terror-stricken thing down the great slopes into the darknessand night falls in the valleys. 4 Here too then also, and without fail, as everywhere else, The same old human face looking forth Whether in the high secluded valleys where all winter comes no sound from the outer world, or whether by the side of the great iron road where the plate-layer runs to bring a passenger a cup of cold water, or whether loafing in the market-place of the fourth-rate country townthe same. Here too from the door of her little wooden tenement the worn face looking forthfringed with grey hair and capthe old woman peering anxiously down the road for her old man; [Saw you not how when he left her in the morning, how anxiously, how lovingly, with what strange transformation of countenanceDeath close behind hershe prayed him early to return?] The little boy with big straw bat and short blouse bringing the goats home at evening, the gape-mouthed short-petticoated squaw that accompanies him; The peasant lying in the field face downwards and asleep, while his wife and children finish the remainder of his meal; the bullock-faced workers on the roads or over the lands; Ever the same human face, ever the same brute men and womenpoignant with what divine obscure attractions! And the dainty-handed Chinaman in the first-class carriage surveys them as he passes, with mental comparisons; And the string of mules waits at the railroad crossing in the last dusk as the train thunders by, and the navvy with great shady hat and grey flannel shirt, and scarf round his waist, waits; And the inhabitants of opposite hemispheres exchange glances with one another for a moment. 5 The night wears onand yet the same steady onward speedthe draw of the great cities, Paris and London, beginning already to be felt; The pause for a few minutes at a junctionthe good coffee and milk, the warm peaceful air, the late moon just rising, the few poplars near, the mountains now faint in the distance behind; The faces seen within the cars, hour after hour, with closed eyes, the changed equalised expression of them, the overshadowing humanity (The great unconscious humanity in each one!) The old bedizened hag overshadowed, The young priest and his recalcitrant opponent both equally overshadowedtheir arguments so merely nothing at all; the beautiful artist-face overshadowed; The unsafe tunnel passed in the dead of the night, the slow tentative movement of the train, the forms and faces of men withinvisible by the light of their own lanterns, anxious with open mouths looking upward at the roofall overshadowed; The little traveler asleep with his head on the lap of his instructorthe Persian boytraveling he too on a long journey, farther than London or Paris; The westward swing of the great planets through the night, the faint early dawn, the farms and fields flying past once more; The great sad plains of Central France, the few trees, the innumerable cultivation, the peasants going out so early to work, The rising of the sun, for a new daythe great red ball so bold rising unblemished on all the heart-ache and suffering, the plans, the schemes, the hopes, the desires, the despairs of millions And the glitter and the roar already, and the rush of the life of Paris. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RICHARD, WHAT'S THAT NOISE? by RICHARD HOWARD LOOKING FOR THE GULF MOTEL by RICHARD BLANCO RIVERS INTO SEAS by LYNDA HULL DESTINATIONS by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE ONE WHO WAS DIFFERENT by RANDALL JARRELL THE CONFESSION OF ST. JIM-RALPH by DENIS JOHNSON SESTINA: TRAVEL NOTES by WELDON KEES TO H. B. (WITH A BOOK OF VERSE) by MAURICE BARING AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER |
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