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To a Locomotive in Winter by Walt Whitman

Analysis

"To a Locomotive in Winter" is a poem written by Walt Whitman. This poem is exactly what the title says. It is about a train! Ah, many a people's favorite subject. Whitman does an excellent job describing the train. He talks of how beautiful it is while giving descriptions many of us only wish we could. The last part of the first stanza states that the locomotive is the pulse of the nation and it continues to go no matter the time of day. The second stanza talks of the train continuing to run across the nation and into the Spring. Basically, he means that the train runs at all times no matter the weather or amount of darkness, just like the nation.

This poem consists of two stanzas. The first stanza has seventeen lines while the second stanza has eight.

Poem

To a Locomotive in Winter
By 

Thee for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm, even as now-the snow-the winter-day declining;
Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat convulsive;
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel;
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides;
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar-now tapering in the distance;
Thy great protruding head-light, fix'd in front;
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple;
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack;
Thy knitted frame-thy springs and valves-the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels;
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering:
Type of the modern! emblem of motion and power! pulse of the continent!
For once, come serve the Muse, and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,
With storm, and buffeting gusts of wind, and falling snow;
By day, thy warning, ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night, thy silent signal lamps to swing. 

Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant, with all thy lawless music! thy swinging lamps at night;
Thy piercing, madly-whistled laughter! thy echoes, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all!
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding;
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide-across the lakes,
To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong.

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Nationality
American

Literary Movement
19th Century

Subjects
Winter, Train, Beauty, Spring, Time, Patriotic