Steam & Excursion > Waxing Poetic

This is a quote from a Welsh goldminer from the late '30s who operated a steam hoist at one of the mines.  Nothing to do with railroads, but the quote is certainly appropriate:“Nothing like steam, oh steam is so beautiful…it’s got a kind of personality”.- Gwylim Price
Gordon
(now back to regularly scheduled programming)
 

Was it Walt Whitman who said that the steam locomotive was the closest thing to a living, breathing being that man ever created?

If he was, he would be right.

-John

How about a pipe organ?  

jcaestecker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Was it Walt Whitman who said that the steam
> locomotive was the closest thing to a living,
> breathing being that man ever created?
>
> If he was, he would be right.
>
> -John

Haven't found that for Walt; would be interested if anyone can pin it; he did have this:

“To a Locomotive in Winter” by Walt Whitman, published February 19, 1876 in the [i]New York Daily Tribune[/i]

Thee for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides,
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance,Thy great protruding head-light fix’d in front,
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple,
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack,
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels,
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;
Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power—pulse of the continent,
For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,
With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow,
By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night,
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all,
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding,
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return’d,
Launch’d o’er the prairies wide, across the lakes,
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/20 04:54 by heatermason.

I thought the quote was from David P. Morgan or maybe he just passed it along.