Poetry
The Branch Line
PROFESSING loud energy, out of the junction departed The branch-line engine. The small train rounded the bend, Watched by us pilgrims of summer, and most by me— Who had known this picture since first my travelling started, And knew it as sadly pleasant, the usual end
Of singing returns to beloved simplicity.
The small train went from view, behind the plantation, Monotonous,—but there's a grace in monotony I felt its journey, I watched in imagination Its brown smoke spun with sunshine wandering free Past the great weir with the round flood-mirror beneath, And where the magpie rises from orchard shadows, And among the oasts and like a rosy wreath Mimicking children's flower-play in the meadows.
The thing so easy, so daily, of so small stature, Gave me another picture,—of war's warped face Where still the sun, the leaf and the lark praised Nature, But no little engine bustled from place to place ; When summer succeeded summer, and only ghosts Or tomorrow's ghosts could venture hand or foot In the track between the terrible telegraph-posts,- The end of all things lying between the but That lurked this side, and the shattered local train Yonder.
So easy it was. And should that come again—.
EDMUND BLUNDEN.
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