Thee for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd 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 madly-whistled laughter, echoing, 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