FROM A RAILWAY CARRIAGE

POEM- FROM A RAILWAY CARRIAGE- ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

·       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.

a.    The poet shares his experience of a railway journey. He describes its speed in a rhythmic manner bridges-hedges, Witches-Ditches, Battle-cattle.

b.   Poet says that train runs more quickly than the fairies can fly or the witches can move. When train advances forward it seems as the soldiers are attacking enemy in a battle field. The train rushes on leaving bridges, houses, fences and ditches behind. It also leaves behind the green fields where horses and Cattle are grazing.

·                         All of the sights of the hill and plain

Fly as the thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

a.    Poet says that all the scenes of hill and plain were being crossed by train as quick as one drop of rain follows another drop in a storm. Again and again in very short moment train was crossing stations with a whistle. From the window of compartment of train buildings of stations were seemed as painted pictures.

·                           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 green for stringing the daisies.

a. In these lines poet says that from the window of the compartment of train he sees a child climbing a steep ground by himself with difficulty. The child was also gathering black berries during climbing. Poet sees a homeless person who was looking at the train with amazement. He also sees some ladies in a common village grassy land, they were making garlands of daisy flowers.

·                         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!

a.    Poet says that he sees a cart moving slowly in the middle of a highway it was full of load and a cart driver was sitting on the top of the load. He sees a water mill and river while travelling in the train. All these objects appeared and then disappeared so quickly that poet looked at them for very brief time and they can never be seen again.

About the Poet:

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet, musician and travel writer. His famous works are “Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange case of Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde and A child’s garden of verses”.