"And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mold allow; The horrid thing pursues my soul,— It stands before me now!" The fearful boy looked up, and saw Huge drops upon his brow.
That very night, while gentle sleep The urchin's eyelids kissed, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walked between, With gyves upon his wrist.
IN THE ENGINE-SHED.
Through air made heavy with vapors murk, O'er slack and cinders in heaps and holes, The engine-driver came to his work, Burly and bluff as a bag of coals; With a thick gold chain where he bulged the most, And a beard like a brush, and a face like a toast, And a hat half-eaten by fire and frost; And a diamond pin in the folded dirt Of the shawl that served him for collar and shirt. Whenever he harnessed his steed of mettle:— The shovel-fed monster that could not tire, With limbs of steel and entrails of fire; Above us it sang like a tea-time kettle.
He came to his salamander toils In what seemed a devil's cast-off suit, All charred, and discolored with rain and oils, And smeared and sooted from muffler to boot. Some wiping—it struck him—his paws might suffer With a wisp of thread he found on the buffer (The improvement effected was not very great); Then he spat, and passed his pipe to his mate.
And his whole face laughed with an honest mirth, As any extant on this grimy earth, Welcoming me to his murky region; And had you known him, I tell you this— Though your bright hair shiver and sink at its roots, O piano-fingering fellow-collegian— You would have returned no cold salutes To the cheery greeting of old Chris, But locked your hand in the vise of his.
For at night when the sleet-storm shatters and scatters, And clangs on the pane like a pile of fetters, He flies through it all with the world's love-letters: The master of mighty leviathan motions, That make for him storm when the nights are fair, And cook him with fire and carve him with air, While we sleep soft on the carriage cushions, And he looks sharp for the signals, blear-eyed. Often had Chris over England rolled me; You shall hear a story he told me— A dream of his rugged watch unwearied.
THE STORY.
We were driving the down express; Will at the steam, and I at the coal; Over the valleys and villages, Over the marshes and coppices, Over the river, deep and broad; Through the mountain, under the road, Flying along, Tearing along. Thunderbolt engine, swift and strong, Fifty tons she was, whole and sole!