The trains go roaring past by day and flashing by at night Bearing adventurers of trade or seekers of delight, While from the little houses that front the right of way There gaze the folks whom destiny has planted there to stay. And some are wistful, wondering how it would seem to be Click-clicking over shining rails, of every fetter free, They thrill with dreaming vision of towns and fields afar Which come to those who flicker past upon a Pullman car. Yet most of those who watch the trains are scarcely stirred at all, For them these magic chariots have neither spell nor thrall; Their passage only serves to break the round of things and then Dull-eyed the watchers go about their humdrum life again. No longing leaps within their breasts, no envy fills their glance, They never see in rushing trains the lure of high romance, They only mutter, "she's on time" or "she's a little late," While great adventure thunders past their very door-yard gate! Oh, sad it is for watchers who are wistful as they gaze On many windowed caravans that sweep down metaled ways, Yet though they never take that trail the dream is theirs to hold, The thought to nurse and cherish and the vision to unfold, But for the other watchers, the dull phlegmatic kind, Theirs is the greater tragedy, for they are wholly blind, And what could be so sad as they whose lives are bleak and slow Who never know the world is wide—and do not want to know! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 1 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 41 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING DISASTER by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 35 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD by JOHN HENRY NEWMAN CELIA'S HOMECOMING by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON MY SHIP by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN THE FIGHT WITH THE SNAPPING TURTLE; OR, THE AMERICAN ST. GEORGE by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN |