THE AWAKENING
(A Little Romance of the Restaurant-Car).
Is there a sight so soothing to the brain
As England's outlines green and softly curved,
Visions of wooded slope and fertile plain
Seen by the traveller in a dining-train,
No doubts to vex him and no talk to strain,
His seat, his chance companion, both reserved?
I think not. Yet the rather stoutish man
Who never raised his head but chewed and chewed
Annoyed me as I feasted. I began
To deem him one who had no higher plan,
No larger outlook in life's journeyings, than
Resonant demolition of his food.
I longed to point to him the hedges twined
With starry blossoms, and the coats like silk
Of oxen as they wandered unconfined;
I longed to ask him if his heavier mind
Preferred the cattle of more stedfast kind
Stamped with advertisements of malted milk.
The little red-brick hamlets, poised apart,
And all the grandeur of the rolling leas,
I longed to ask him if they brought no smart
Of scarce-remembered boyhood to his heart.
But I refrained; and he took cherry tart
And after that two different kinds of cheese.
And then we neared a little market town
Half hidden in the dale, that seemed to cling
Fondly about a church of old renown;
And here the fat man started and looked down
And filled his tumbler to the foaming crown
And held it high as if to pledge the king.
Some memory seemed to stir within his breast
As though the curtain of old days were torn,
And, as he drained the glass with eager zest,
"Behold," I thought, "I wronged him. In that nest,
So far from turmoil, full of old-world rest
(He is about to tell me), he was born.
"And now, before the antique spire hath fled,
Because remembrance of his home is dear,
He toasts it deeply." All my wrath was dead.
Then the man smiled at me and wagged his head;
"Junction for Little Barleythorpe," he said;
"A week ago these points upset my beer."
Evoe.