Men with picked voices chant the names of cities in a huge gallery: promises that pull through descending stairways to a deep rumbling. The rubbing feet of those coming to be carried quicken a grey pavement into soft light that rocks to and fro, under the domed ceiling, across and across from pale earthcolored walls of bare limestone. Covertly the hands of a great clock go round and round! Were they to move quickly and at once the whole secret would be out and the shuffling of all ants be done forever. A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing out at a high window, moves by the clock: disaccordant hands straining out from a center: inevitable postures infinitely repeated -- two -- twofour -- twoeight! Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms. This way ma'am! -- important not to take the wrong train! Lights from the concrete ceiling hang crooked but -- Poised horizontal on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders packed with a warm glow -- inviting entry -- pull against the hour. But brakes can hold a fixed posture till -- The whistle! Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two! Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating in a small kitchen. Taillights -- In time: twofour! In time: twoeight! -- rivers are tunneled: trestles cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating the same gesture remain relatively stationary: rails forever parallel return on themselves infinitely. The dance is sure. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOGGIN' ERLONG by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1884 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP by ROBERT SOUTHWELL THE TRIUMPH OF TIME by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 51 by ALFRED TENNYSON KNOWLEDGE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE EGYPTIAN PRINCESS by EDWIN ARNOLD |