Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1915 — THE STEEL ROAD [ARTICLE]

THE STEEL ROAD

The railroad has been the subject of several poems recently, but of none more musical than this, which we take from the American Lumberman. There’s a steel road, a real road, that runs among the trees, That dashes over cataracts and v clamJbers over hills; There’s a white road, a bright road, that’s swifter than the breeze— And, easterly or westerly, it wanders where It wills! And it’s ho! then, it’s go then, along tbs shining rails, A speeder for your chariot upon a summer’s day; It will lead you, will speed you, through green and dewy dfiles, The forest for your canopy upon your royal way! There Is ne’er then a care then—the town V Is left behlndr You’re free as any meadow lark that circles In the blue; Like a swallow you follow the rails as thejt unwind— In all the world around you there is Just the road and you!

And when play ends and day ends and ruddy Is the west. When birds come singing from the fields and sailors from the foam. Then the steel road, the real road, the road that leads to rest Is the white road, the bright road, the road that leads to home! —Douglas Malloch.