I had been promoted to the express: I warrant I was proud and gay. It was the evening that ended May, And the sky was a glory of tenderness. We were thundering down to a midland town,— It doesn't matter about the name, For we didn't stop there, or anywhere For a dozen miles on either side. Well, as I say, just there you slide, With your steam shut off and your brakes in hand, Down the steepest and longest grade in the land, At a pace that, I promise you, is grand. We were just there with the express, When I caught sight of a girl's white dress On the bank ahead; and as we passed— You have no notion how fast— She sank back scared from our baleful blast.
We were going—a mile and a quarter a minute— With vans and carriages—down the incline! But I saw her face, and the sunshine in it; I looked in her eyes, and she looked in mine As the train went by, like a shot from a mortar: A roaring hell-breath of dust and smoke. And it was a minute before I woke, When she lay behind us—a mile and a quarter.
And the years went on, and the express Leaped in her black resistlessness, Evening by evening, England through.— Will—God rest him!—was found—a mash Of bleeding rags, in a fearful smash He made of Christmas train at Crewe. It chanced I was ill the night of the mess, Or I shouldn't now be here alive; But thereafter, the five o'clock out express, Evening by evening, I used to drive.
And often I saw her: that lady, I mean, That I spoke of before. She often stood Atop of the bank;—it was pretty high, Say, twenty feet, and backed by a wood.— She would pick daisies out of the green To fling down at us as we went by. We had grown to be friends, too, she and I. Though I was a stalwart, grimy chap, And she a lady! I'd wave my cap Evening by evening, when I'd spy That she was there, in the summer air, Watching the sun sink out of the sky.
Oh, I didn't see her every night: Bless you! no; just now and then, And not at all for a twelvemonth quite. Then, one evening, I saw her again, Alone, as ever—but wild and pale— Climbing down on the line, on the very rail, While a light as of hell from our wild wheels broke, Tearing down the slope with their devilish clamors And deafening din, as of giant hammers That smote in a whirlwind of dust and smoke All the instant or so that we sped to meet her. Never, O never, had she seemed sweeter!— I let yell the whistle, reversing the stroke, Down that awful incline; and signalled the guard To put on his brakes at once, and HARD! — Though we couldn't have stopped. We tattered the rail Into splinters and sparks, but without avail. We couldn't stop; and she wouldn't stir, Saving to turn us her eyes, and stretch Her arms to us:—and the desperate wretch I pitied, comprehending her. So the brakes let off, and the steam full again, Sprang down on the lady the terrible train.— She never flinched. We beat her down, And ran on through the lighted length of the town Before we could stop to see what was done.
Yes, I've run over more than one! Full a dozen, I should say; but none That I pitied as I pitied her. If I could have stopped—with all the spur Of the train's weight on, and cannily— But it never would do with a lad like me And she a lady,—or had been.—Sir?— We won't say any more of her; The world is hard. But I'm her friend, Right through—down to the world's end. It is a curl of her sunny hair Set in this locket that I wear; I picked it off the big wheel there.— Time's up, Jack—Stand clear, sir. Yes, We're going out with the express.
REVELRY OF THE DYING.
[Supposed to be written in India, while the plague was raging, and playing havoc among the British residents and troops stationed there.]
We meet 'neath the sounding rafter, And the walls around are bare; As they shout to our peals of laughter, It seems that the dead are there. But stand to your glasses, steady! We drink to our comrades' eyes; Quaff a cup to the dead already— And hurrah for the next that dies!