From a Railway Carriage

Last updated

From a Railway Carriage is a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, included within his 1885 collection A Child's Garden of Verses . [1] 'The poem uses its rhythm to evoke the movement of a train.

Contents

Poet

Robert Louis Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 Dec 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet and essayist. A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. He is currently[ when? ] ranked as the 26th most translated author in the world.

Poem

From a Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches,

Charging along like troops in a battle

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And here is the green for stringing the daisies!

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 forever!

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Louis Stevenson</span> Scottish novelist and poet (1850–1894)

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.

<i>Treasure Island</i> Novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, telling a story of "buccaneers and buried gold". It is considered a coming-of-age story and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Ernest Henley</span> English poet, critic and editor (1849–1903)

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, writer, critic and editor. Though he wrote several books of poetry, Henley is remembered most often for his 1875 poem "Invictus". A fixture in London literary circles, the one-legged Henley might have been the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's character Long John Silver, while his young daughter Margaret Henley inspired J. M. Barrie's choice of the name Wendy for the heroine of his play Peter Pan (1904).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Meredith</span> British novelist and poet (1828–1909)

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) briefly scandalised Victorian literary circles. Of his later novels, the most enduring is The Egoist (1879), though in his lifetime his greatest success was Diana of the Crossways (1885). His novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology, and also portrayed social change. His style, in both poetry and prose, was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". Meredith was an encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. Meredith was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Stevenson (civil engineer)</span> Civil engineer and lighthouse designer (1772–1850)

Robert Stevenson, FRSE, FGS, FRAS, FSA Scot, MWS was a Scottish civil engineer, and designer and builder of lighthouses. His works include the Bell Rock Lighthouse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Puffing Billy Railway</span> Railway in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Puffing Billy Railway is a 2 ft 6 in narrow gauge heritage railway in the southern foothills of the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne, Australia. The railway was one of the five narrow gauge lines of the Victorian Railways which opened around the beginning of the 20th century. It is close to the city of Melbourne and is one of the most popular steam heritage railways in the world, attracting tourists from Australia and overseas. The railway aims to preserve and restore the line as near as possible to how it was in the first three decades of its existence, but with particular emphasis on the early 1920s.

<i>The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses</i> Novel by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses is an 1888 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is both a historical adventure novel and a romance novel. It first appeared as a serial in 1883 with the subtitle "A Tale of Tunstall Forest" beginning in Young Folks; A Boys' and Girls' Paper of Instructive and Entertaining Literature, vol. XXII, no. 656 and ending in vol. XXIII, no. 672 —Stevenson had finished writing it by the end of summer. It was printed under the pseudonym Captain George North. He alludes to the time gap between the serialisation and the publication as one volume in 1888 in his preface "Critic [parodying Dickens's 'Cricket'] on the Hearth": "The tale was written years ago for a particular audience..." The Paston Letters were Stevenson's main literary source for The Black Arrow. The Black Arrow consists of 79,926 words.

"The Skye Boat Song" is a late 19th-century Scottish song adaptation of a Gaelic song composed c.1782 by William Ross, entitled Cuachag nan Craobh. In the original song, the composer laments to a cuckoo that his unrequited love, Lady Marion Ross, is rejecting him. The 19th century English lyrics instead evoked the journey of Prince Charles Edward Stuart from Benbecula to the Isle of Skye as he evaded capture by government soldiers after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

"This Be The Verse" is a lyric poem in three stanzas with an alternating rhyme scheme, by the English poet Philip Larkin (1922–1985). It was written around April 1971, was first published in the August 1971 issue of New Humanist, and appeared in the 1974 collection High Windows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir Patrick Spens</span> Traditional song

"Sir Patrick Spens" is one of the most popular of the Child Ballads, and is of Scottish origin. It is a maritime ballad about a disaster at sea.

<i>A Childs Garden of Verses</i> 1885 poetry collection by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child's Garden of Verses is an 1885 volume of 64 poems for children by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It has been reprinted many times, often in illustrated versions, and is considered to be one of the most influential children's works of the 19th century. The poems, which have been widely imitated, are written from the point of view of a child. Stevenson dedicated the collection to his childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham.

"Dead Man's Chest" is a fictional sea song, originally from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island (1883). It was expanded in a poem, titled "Derelict" by Young E. Allison, published in the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1891. It has since been used in many later works of art in various forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dubh Artach</span> Remote skerry off the west coast of Scotland

Dubh Artach is a remote skerry of basalt rock off the west coast of Scotland lying 18 miles (29 km) west of Colonsay and 15 miles (24 km) south-west of the Ross of Mull.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swindon Works</span> Former railway workshops in Swindon, Wiltshire, England

Swindon Works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-Jean-du-Gard</span> Commune in Occitania, France

Saint-Jean-du-Gard is a commune in the Gard department in southern France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Lamplighter (poem)</span> 1885 poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Lamplighter is a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson contained in his 1885 collection A Child's Garden of Verses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Vaea</span> Mountain in Samoa, burial place of Robert Louis Stevenson

Mount Vaea is a 472 m summit overlooking Apia, the capital of Samoa located on the north central coast of Upolu island. The mountain is situated south about 3 km inland from Apia township and harbour. The settlement at the foothills on the northern side of the mountain is called Lalovaea.

Across the Plains (1892) is the middle section of Robert Louis Stevenson's three-part travel memoir which began with The Amateur Emigrant and ended with The Silverado Squatters.

Events from the year 1894 in Scotland.

My Shadow is an 1885 poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. Among his most famous poems for children, it appeared in A Child's Garden of Verses in 1885.

References

  1. Michael J. Freeman; Derek H. Aldcroft (1991). Transport in Victorian Britain. Manchester University Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN   978-0-7190-2333-0.