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The Rail

Long hard days, long cold nights
I work on the rail driving rail road spikes
I work all day from dusk til dawn
We don't take a break til the beans are done

The boss man says, Pick up those spikes
Lay out those rails make them fit just right
Pick up the hammer and drive it in
What I'm paying you boys, I ain't your friend

They pay me boys to tell you what to do
There's another thousand rails to lay, we ain't through
I work all day and I bust my back
I make my money on a rail road track

I work long days and long cold nights
Lay out that rail and lay it right
Pick up a hammer and I drive it in
Then reach for another and do it all again

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poem by Bill Simmons
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Song Of The Rail

Oh, an ugly thing is an iron rail,
Black, with its face to the dust.
But it carries a message where winged things fail;
It crosses the mountains, and catches the trail,
While the winds and the sea make sport of a sail;
Oh, a rail is a friend to trust.

The iron rail, with its face to the sod,
Is only a bar of ore;
Yet it speeds where never a foot has trod;
And the narrow path where it leads, grows broad;
And it speaks to the world in the voice of God;
That echoes from shore to shore.

Though the iron rail, on the earth down flung,
Seems kin to the loam and the soil,
Wherever its high shrill note is sung,
Out of the jungle fair homes have sprung,
And the voices of babel find one tongue,
In the common language of toil.

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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Steel Rail Blues

Well I got my mail late last night
A letter from a girl who found the time to write
To her lonesome boy somewhere in the night
She sent me a railroad ticket too
To take me to her loving arms
And the big steel rail
Gonna carry me home to the one I love
Well I been out here many a long days
I haven't found a place that I could call my own
Not a two bit bed to lay my body on
I been stood up I been shook down
I bin dragged into the sand
And the big steel rail gonna carry me home to the one I love
Well I been up tight most every night
Walking along the streets of this old town
Not a friend to tell my troubles to
My good old car she done broke down
'Cause I drove it into the ground
And the big steel rail gonna carry me home to the one I love
Well look over yonder across the plain

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song performed by Jim Croce
Added by Lucian Velea
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Steel Rail Blues

Well I got my mail late last night
A letter from a girl who found the time
To write
To her lonesome boy somewheres in the
Night
She sent me a railroad ticket too
To take me to her lovin arms
And the big steel rail gonna carry me
Home to the one I love
Well I bin out here many long days
I havent found a place that I could call
My own
Not a two bit bed to lay my body on
I bin stood up I bin shook down
I bin dragged into the sand
And the big steel rail gonna carry me
Home to the one I love
Ooooh oooo oo whu hu hoo
Ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo oo
Well I bin up tight most every night

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song performed by Gordon Lightfoot
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Roan Stallion

The dog barked; then the woman stood in the doorway, and hearing
iron strike stone down the steep road
Covered her head with a black shawl and entered the light rain;
she stood at the turn of the road.
A nobly formed woman; erect and strong as a new tower; the
features stolid and dark
But sculptured into a strong grace; straight nose with a high bridge,
firm and wide eyes, full chin,
Red lips; she was only a fourth part Indian; a Scottish sailor had
planted her in young native earth,
Spanish and Indian, twenty-one years before. He had named her
California when she was born;
That was her name; and had gone north.
She heard the hooves and
wheels come nearer, up the steep road.
The buckskin mare, leaning against the breastpiece, plodded into
sight round the wet bank.
The pale face of the driver followed; the burnt-out eyes; they had
fortune in them. He sat twisted
On the seat of the old buggy, leading a second horse by a long

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Hawk Revisited

Told of the hawk on the rail
friends wink.
'A hawk? In the Barrio'?
Not knowing what to think
they glance at each other, first, then at their knees,
stare at the vacant rail, then back at me
as if I'd claimed to see
an elf in Bermudas sipping a Sea-Breeze;
hasten to agree
concluding my mistake, if any, harmless-
the sort of thing that happens every day,
'Goodbye', say, and quickly slip away.

Till I conclude the raptor on the rail
the ruins of a burst balloon
snatched by the wind from some child's bouquet
caught, now, on the rail's disjointed finger;
or, drifting in place
an expirant shred of sooty plastic;
some out-the-window flung

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest

Sons of the mountains of Scotland,
Welshmen of coomb and defile,
Breed of the moors of England,
Children of Erin's green isle,
We stand four square to the tempest,
Whatever the battering hail-
No foe shall gather our harvest,
Or sit on our stockyard rail.

Our women shall walk in honour,
Our children shall know no chain,
This land, that is ours forever,
The invader shall strike at in vain.
Anzac!...Tobruk!...and Kokoda!...
Could ever the old blood fail?
No foe shall gather our harvest,
Or sit on our stockyard rail.

So hail-fellow-met we muster,
And hail-fellow-met fall in,

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poem by Dame Mary Gilmore
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The Old Brass Rail

Foot on the rail in the olden days,
For all the world to see,
A jolly old lot, they took their pot
All unashamed and free,
Passing their jest from lip to lip,
Puffing away the foam,
Till a small voice cried from the path outside:
'Ma says, you're to come on home.'

Foot on the rail they faced the world
And cared not who should know;
And many they went, thro' a life mis-spent
As man a man must go
Straight to the dogs from the old brass rail,
Lost and ruined and wrecked:
But he went to his fate with the game played straight:
And he went with his head erect.

Then came the camel, with his lip adroop,
Calling an end to fun.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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A Railroad Eclogue

Father: What brought thee back, lad?

Son: Father! the same feet
As took me brought me back, I warrant ye.

Father: Couldst thou not find the rail?

Son: The deuce himself
Who can find most things, could not find the rail.

Father: Plain as a pike-staff miles and miles it lies.

Son: So they all told me. Pike-staffs in your day
Must have been hugely plainer than just now.

Father: What didst thou ask for?

Son: Ask for? Tewkesbury,
Thro Defford opposite to Breedon-hill.

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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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7 Days on the Sea

Monday
The world is a ball of water.
See, it is round-sided.
I move across its topside,
upon the world, not in it.
The boat is a comb, acomb over idle
white hair.
Waves grow on a round skull
uncountable.
Sea, it is round-sided.
Fog is building a vessel.
Sea is the butt of a bottle.
Boat bobs in the center.
At the V
of the stern standing,
I see below me sea,
ceiling of fog, see
the round horizon, sea
tears on my cheeks. I see
through globes of tears

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poem by May Swenson
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