Song of the First Locomotive

By Anonymous

Annotations by Kristina Bowers

A writer in a Vermont paper says, “I attended a meeting about a survey of the country between Brattleboro’ and Fitchburg, with a view to a railroad. I became interested, and was very glad to find others so. I am one of the sanguine ones perhaps, but the subject took possession of my imagination, and I went to sleep with a confused jumble in my head about ‘Railroad Spirit,’ ‘Crocker,’ ‘Montague Fall,’ and ‘Loammi Baldwin’s Survey.’–These mingled in my dreams not at all to the benefit of my body’s rest, until suddenly the scene changed, and I seemed to see a group of children sitting around a table, while one was reading aloud from a miniature newspaper. I listened and heard a clear, silvery little voice repeat this,

The Song of the First Locomotive

ON ITS ENTRANCE INTO THE VALLEY OF BRATTLEBORO’, 1846.

I come, I come, ye have called me long,
I come through the hills with a clattering throng
Of cars behind me, which shake the earth,
And to many an uncouth[1] sound give birth.
I have passed through many a sheltered vale
Where the flowers shrunk at the sudden gale,
Made by my hot and whizzing breath,
As I rushed along, the hills beneath;
The weeping Elm trees gracefully bent,
To see what a hurrying meant,
And the Oriole[2] wondered at my haste,
As he swung aloft in his airy nest;
But I doubt not, now that I am gone,
They think it a dream of the early morn,
(For birds and flowers are careless things,)
And the robin spreads his golden wings,
And the pink spireas[3] look smartly up,
And the Foxglove opens its yellow cup,
And they never dream in their present delight,
That I and my train will be back at night.

      How slow your river runs! Strange to me,
That it should not flow more speedily, 
But should stop to play o’er each old grey stone,
With as soft and musical a moan,
As if there were nothing on earth to be done,
But to plash, and murmur, and shine in the sun.
It must have caught that lazy song,
From the sleepy stage-coach winding along,
That turnpike road, in old fashioned-times,
Which still around the precipice climbs,
As to show how slowly people could go,
Before they had learned my speed to know.
Your mountains too, has a placid look,
With the shadows resting on each green nook,
And the grey mists, gathered half up its side,
Seem as they could not quite decide,
Whether to float into upper air,
Or still to suspend their curtain fair
Over its rugged and time worn brow,
Which shows so softly through them now.

      But I must not get into this gossiping mood,
I only stopped for water and wood,
And to let your villagers have a gaze,
At what seems to set them all in a maze;
My course is onward--and faster yet,
With shriek, and hiss, and hot steam jet,
Shaking the echoes out of your mountains,
And drowning the voice of your shady fountains,
I am off--and as I thunder along,
Ye may hear the last strain of the first engine’s song.”
                                                                        ANON.
     

Anonymous. “song of the first locomotive: on it’s entrance into the valley of brattleboro’, 1846.” The child’s friend and family magazine 12, NO. 5 (august 1 1849): 238-239.

[1] Uncouth: Awkward, uncultivated, rugged. (Merriam-Webster)

[2] Orioles are brightly colored birds, usually orange and black or yellow and black.

[3] Spirea: Flowering shrub that blooms in the spring or summer.