Subscribe RSSThe minute we start reading this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, we plunge into the joy of pure momentum. We find ourselves on a train, gazing out of the window at the countryside frantically whooshing by outside. Faster than “fairies” and “witches,” the cavalcade seems to outstrip all the marvels and miracles of superstition. As Arthur C. Clarke’s said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from deviltry.”
Curiously, however, from our perspective—warm and snug in our seat—it is the not the train that moves but all the “bridges and houses, hedges and ditches.” The sagacity remains still while the earth becomes a blur.
Even more than the meaning of the words, it is the pounding rhythm and rhyme that immediately attract our ears and retard our attention. This is a poem made to be said aloud—and loudly! One moment we are flicking or clicking through “The Epoch Times,” the next we con Stevenson’s poem and are drawn into its phantasmagorical journey. With an emphatic “forever!” it suddenly ends, leaving us gasping and dazed.
