The Railway Train

I LIKE to see it lap the miles,And lick the valleys up,And stop to feed itself at tanks;And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,And, supercilious, peerIn shanties by the sides of roads;And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,Complaining all the whileIn horrid, hooting stanza;Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;Then, punctual as a star,Stop — docile and omnipotent —At its own stable door.