| WHAT was it the Engines said, | |
| Pilots touching,—head to head | |
| Facing on the single track, | |
| Half a world behind each back? | |
| This is what the Engines said, | 5 |
| Unreported and unread. | |
| |
| With a prefatory screech, | |
| In a florid Western speech, | |
| Said the engine from the West, | |
| "I am from Sierra's crest; | 10 |
| And, if altitude 's a test, | |
| Why, I reckon, it 's confessed, | |
| That I 've done my level best." | |
| |
| Said the Engine from the East, | |
| "They who work best talk the least. | 15 |
| S'pose you whistle down your brakes; | |
| What you 've done is no great shakes,— | |
| Pretty fair,—but let our meeting | |
| Be a different kind of greeting. | |
| Let these folks with champagne stuffing, | 20 |
| Not their Engines, do the puffing. | |
| |
| "Listen! Where Atlantic beats | |
| Shores of snow and summer heats; | |
| Where the Indian autumn skies | |
| Paint the woods with wampum dies,— | 25 |
| I have chased the flying sun, | |
| Seeing all he looked upon, | |
| Blessing all that he has blest, | |
| Nursing in my iron breast | |
| All his vivifying heat, | 30 |
| All his clouds about my crest; | |
| And before my flying feet | |
| Every shadow must retreat." | |
| |
| Said the Western Engine, "Phew!" | |
| And a long, low whistle blew. | 35 |
| "Come, now, really that 's the oddest | |
| Talk for one so very modest. | |
| You brag of your East. You do? | |
| Why, I bring the East to you! | |
| All the Orient, all Cathay, | 40 |
| Find through me the shortest way; | |
| And the sun you follow here | |
| Rises in my hemisphere. | |
| Really,—if one must be rude,— | |
| Length, my friend, ain't longitude." | 45 |
| Said the Union: "Don't reflect, or | |
| I 'll run over some Director." | |
| Said the Central: "I 'm Pacific; | |
| But, when riled, I 'm quite terrific. | |
| Yet to-day we shall not quarrel, | 50 |
| Just to show these folks this moral, | |
| How two Engines—in their vision— | |
| Once have met without collision." | |
| |
| That is what the Engines said, | |
| Unreported and unread; | 55 |
| Spoken slightly through the nose, | |
| With a whistle at the close. | |
