What the Engines Said

What was it the Engines said,     Pilots touching, head to head     Facing on the single track,     Half a world behind each back?     This is what the Engines said,     Unreported and unread.     With a prefatory screech,     In a florid Western speech,     Said the Engine from the West:     I am from Sierras crest;     And if altitudes a test,     Why, I reckon, its confessed     That Ive done my level best.     Said the Engine from the East:     They who work best talk the least.     Spose you whistle down your brakes;     What youve done is no great shakes,     Pretty fair, but let our meeting     Be a different kind of greeting.     Let these folks with champagne stuffing,     Not their Engines, do the puffing.     Listen! Where Atlantic beats     Shores of snow and summer heats;     Where the Indian autumn skies     Paint the woods with wampum dyes,     I have chased the flying sun,     Seeing all he looked upon,     Blessing all that he has blessed,     Nursing in my iron breast     All his vivifying heat,     All his clouds about my crest;     And before my flying feet     Every shadow must retreat.     Said the Western Engine, Phew!     And a long, low whistle blew.     Come, now, really thats the oddest     Talk for one so very modest.     You brag of your East! You do?     Why, I bring the East to you!     All the Orient, all Cathay,     Find through me the shortest way;     And the sun you follow here     Rises in my hemisphere.     Really, if one must be rude,     Length, my friend, aint longitude.     Said the Union: Dont reflect, or     Ill run over some Director.     Said the Central: Im Pacific;     But, when riled, Im quite terrific.     Yet to-day we shall not quarrel,     Just to show these folks this moral,     How two Engines in their vision     Once have met without collision.     That is what the Engines said,     Unreported and unread;     Spoken slightly through the nose,     With a whistle at the close.