Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN THE TRAIN, by FORD MADOX FORD



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE TRAIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Out of the window I see a dozen great stars, burning bright
Last Line: Shall the white stars wheel in their reverie.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox
Subject(s): Railroads; Stars; Railways; Trains


OUT of the window I see a dozen great stars, burning bright,
Flying in silence, engrossed in the uttermost depths of the night,
Star beyond star, growing clear, flying on as I pass through the night.
It's many days since last I saw the stars
Look through the night sky's bars,
Like mists and veils of shimmer and shining gauze—
So little time we have and so much cause
To stay beneath the roof; so much to do!
The life we lead!... Well, you
Get to your bed at ten, and you, away
I like my glass of wine to end the day.

Now as the train ambles on, slowly and I watch alone
Stars and black woods and the stream, dim in the light of the stars
Winding away to the past beneath Castor and Pollux and Mars;
It seems as long since last I held your hand
As since I saw the stars.
And ah! if we meet in this land,
And ah! if we meet oversea
In the dark where the traffic of London races
Or in these castled, woodland places—
And then—wherever it be
Shall not our thoughts go away into deeps
Where the mind sleeps and the brain too sleeps,
As when we take thought and we gaze
Past all the bee swarms of stars
Spread o'er the night and its bars,
Past mists and veils and shimmer and shine and haze
Into the deep and silent places,
The still, unfathomable spaces
Where the brain sleeps and the mind too sleeps
And all the deeps stretch out beyond the deeps
And thought dies down before infinity?...
So, in an utter satisfaction
Beyond all thought and beyond all action
In a blindness more blind than the starless places
I shall stretch my face to where your face is.
And over head, over land and sea
Shall the white stars wheel in their reverie.





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