But I hear it1s whistle shrieking.

All night there isn’t a train goes by,

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming

But I see its cinders red on the sky

And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,

And better friends I’ll not be knowing,

Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,

No matter where it’s going.

Edna St Vincent Millay

From a Railway Carriage

From a Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches,

And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is the green for stringing the daisies!

Here is a cart run away in the road,

Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill, and there is a river;

Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Six Strings

The Six Strings

The guitar

makes dreams weep.

The sobbing of lost souls

escapes from

its open mouth.

And like the tarantula

it weaves a huge star

to catch the sighs

that float

from its black

wooden box.

Federico García Lorca

Tarantella

Tarantella

Do you remember an Inn,

Miranda?

Do you remember an Inn?

And the tedding and the spreading

Of the straw for a bedding,

And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,

And the wine that tasted of the tar,

And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?

Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,

Do you remember an Inn?

And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

Who hadn’t got a penny,

And who weren’t paying any,

And the hammer at the doors and the Din?

And the Hip! Hop! Hap!

Of the clap

Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl

Of the girl gone chancing,

Glancing,

Dancing,

Backing and advancing,

Snapping of the clapper to the spin

Out and in –

And the Ting, Tong, Tang of the Guitar!

Do you remember an Inn,

Miranda?

Do you remember an Inn?

Never more,

Miranda,

Never more.

Only the high peaks hoar:

And Aragon a torrent at the door.

No sound

In the walls of the Halls where falls

The tread

Of the feet of the dead to the ground,

No sound:

But the boom

Of the far Waterfall like Doom.

Hilaire Belloc

This Poem . . .

This Poem . . .

This poem is dangerous: it should not be left

Within the reach of children, or even of adults

Who might swallow it whole, with possibly

Undesirable side-effects. If you come across

An unattended, unidentified poem