Song of the Locomotive.
Beware! beware! for I come in my might,
With a scream and a scowl of scorn;
With a speed like the mountain eagle’s flight,
When he rides the breeze of morn.
Avaunt! avaunt! for I heed you not,
Nor pause for the cry of pain;
I rejoice o’er the slaughter my wheels have wrought,
And I laugh at the mangled slain.
Away—away—o’er valley; plain—
I sweep by with a voice of wrath;
In a fleecy cloud I wrap my train,
As I tread my iron path.
My bowels are fire, and my arm is steel,
My breath is a rolling cloud:
And my voice peels out as I onward wheel,
Like the thunder rolling loud.
All day, all day, do my sinews play,
When the sun’s bright rays are cast;
At the midnight hour I fly on my way,
Like a death-fiend howling past.
I bear the wealth of a thousand climes,
The spoils of a briny sea,
The produce of lands where the church-bells chime,
And the gold of the dark Caffree.
I roar on the beach of the roaring deep,
Where the sea-shells touch my wheels;
Through the desert land with a howl I sweep,
And the yellow harvest fields.
I speed through the city’s busy streets,
Where the thronging crowds are found.
Who fly at the sound of my iron feet,
Like the hare at the baying hound.
I traverse the regions of burning heat,
The Equator hears my scream;
And I breathe the silence of winter’s retreat,
Where the glittering snow-fields gleam.
The wild beasts fly when my voice they hear
Through the sounding forest ring,
And the sons of men stand mute with fear,
Of earth I am the king.—