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• A constant keeping past of shaken trees,
• And a bewildered glitter of loose road;
• Banks of bright growth, with single blades atop
• Against white sky; and wires—a constant chain—
• That seem to draw the clouds along with them;
• (Things which one stoops against the light to see
• Through the low window;—shaking by at rest,
• Or fierce like water as the swiftness grows;)
• And, seen through fences or a bridge far off,
• 10Trees that in moving keep their distances intervals,
• Still one 'twixt bar and bar; and then at times
• Long reaches of green level, where one cow,
• Feeding among her fellows that feed on,
• Lifts her slow neck, and gazes for the sound.

• There are six of us, I that write away;
• Hunt reads Dumas, hard-lipped, with heavy jowl
• And brows hung low, and the long ends of hair
• Standing out limp. A grazier at one end
• (Thank luck not my end!) has [?] blocked out the air,
• 20And sits in heavy consciousness of guilt.
• The poor young muff who's face to face with me
• Is pitiful in loose collar & black tie,
• His latchet-button shaking as we go.
• There are flowers by me, half upon my knees,
• Owned by a dame who's fair in soul, no doubt.
• The wind that beats among us carries off
• Their scent; but still I have them for my eye.

• Fields mown in ridges; and close garden-crops
• Of the earth's increase; and a constant sky
• 30Still with clear trees that let you see the wind;
• And snatches of the engine-smoke, by fits
• Tossed to the wind against the landscape, where
• Rooks, stooping, heave their wings upon the day.

• Brick walls we pass between, past so at once
• That for the suddenness I cannot know
• Or what, or where begun, or where at end.
• Sometimes a station in grey quiet; whence,
• With a short gathered champing of pent sound,
• We are let out upon the air again.
• 40Now nearly darkness; knees, & arms, & sides



Column Break



• Feel the least touch; and close about the face
• A wind of noise that is along like God.

• Pauses of water soon, at intervals,
• That has the sky in it:—the reflexes
• O' the trees move towards the bank as we go by,
• Leaving the water's surface plain. I now
• Lie back and close my eyes a space; for they
• Smart from the open forwardness of thought
• Fronting the wind.

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• I did not scribble more,
• 50Be certain, after this; but yawned, & read,
• And nearly dozed a little, I believe,
• Till, stretching up against the carriage-back,
• I was roused altogether, and looked out
Deleted Text
To where, upon the desolate verge of light,
Yearned, pale and vast, the iron-coloured sea.
To where the pale sea brooded motion[less].

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• The sea is in its listless chime,
• Like Time's lapse rendered audible,—
• The murmur of the earth's large shell.
• In a sad blueness, beyond rhyme
• It ends: Sense, without thought, can pass
• No stadium further. Since Time was,
• This sound hath told the lapse of Time.

• No stagnance that Death wins,—it hath
• The mournfulness of ancient life,
• 10 Always enduring at dull strife.
• Like the world's heart, in calm and wrath,
• Its painful pulse is in the sands.
• Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
• Grey & not known, along its path.

   

• Strong extreme speed, that the brain hurries with
• Further than trees, and hedges, & green grass
• Whitened by distance,—further than small pools
• Held among fields and gardens,—further than
• Haystacks, and windmillsails, and roofs, & herds,—
• The sea's last margin ceases at the sun.

• The sea has left us, but the sun remains.
• Sometimes the country spreads aloof in tracts
• Smooth from the harvest: sometimes sky & land
• 10Are shut from the square space the window leaves,
• By a dense crowd of trees, stem behind stem
• Passing across each other as we pass:
• Sometimes tall poplar-wands stand white, their heads
• Outmeasuring the distant hills. Sometimes
• The ground has a deep greenness; sometimes brown
• In stubble; and sometimes no ground at all,
• For the close strength of crops that stand unreaped.
• The water-plots are sometimes all the sun's,—
• Sometimes quite green through shadows filling them
• 20Or islanded with growths of reeds,—or else
• Masked in green dust like the wide face o' the fields.
• And still the swiftness lasts; that to our speed,
• The trees seem shaken like a press of spears.

• There is some count of us:—folks travelling capped,
• Priesthood, and lank hard-featured soldiery;
• Females (no women), Blouses, Hunt, & I.

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• We are relayed at Amiens. The steam
• Snorts, chafes and bridles like 300 horse,
• And flings its dusky mane upon the air.

• 30Our company is thinned, and lamps alight.
• But still there are the folks in travelling-caps,
• (No priesthood now, but always soldiery,
• And babies to make up for show in noise,)
• Females (no women), Blouses, Hunt, & I.

• Our windows at one side are shut for warmth.
• Upon the other side, a leaden sky,
• Hung in blank glare, makes all the country dusk dim,
• Which too seems bald and meagre,—be it truth,
• Or of the waxing darkness. Here and there
• 40The shade takes light, where in thin patches stand
• The [?] unstirred dregs of water. Hunt can see
• A moon, he says; but I am too far back.
• Still the same speed & thunder. We are stopt



Column Break



• Again, and speech sounds tells clearer than in day.

• Hunt has just stretched to tell me that he fears
• I and my note-book may be taken for
• The stuff that goes to make an “émissaire”
• “De la perfide.” Let me abate my zeal:
• There is a stout gendarme within the coach.

• 50This cursed pitching is too bad. My teeth
• Jingle together in it; and my legs
• (Which I got wet at Boulogne this good day
• Wading for starfish) are so chilled that I
• Would don my coat, were not these seats too hard
• To spare it from beneath me, and were not
• The love of ease less than the love of sloth.

• Hunt has just told me it is nearly 8:
• We do not reach till 1/2 past 10. Drat verse,
• And steam, and Paris, & the songs fins of time!
• 60Marry, for me, look you, I will go sleep.

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• Most of them slept; I could not—held awake
• By jolting clamour, with shut eyes; my head
• Willing to nod and fancy itself vague.
• Only at stations I looked round me, when
• The s Short silence paused among us, & I felt
• A creeping in my feet, through from abrupt calm.
• At such times Hunt would jerk himself, & then
• Tumble uncouthly forward in his sleep.
• This lasted near 3 hours. The darkness now
• 70Stayeth behind us on the sullen road,
• And all this light is Paris. Dieu merci.

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• Send to me, dear William, by return of post,
• As much as you can manage of that rhyme
• Incurred at Ventnor. Bothers and delays
• Have still prevented me from copying this
• Till now: now that I do so, let it be
• Anticipative compensation.
• Numéro 4, Rue Geoffroy Marie,
• Faubourg Montmartre, près des Boulevards.
• 80Dear William, labelled thus the thing will reach.

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