GREEN AND GOLD
(Composed c.1972, no known manuscript; reconstructed from memory by the editor. Very reluctantly, I have to admit that there are several gaps where after a lapse of over thirty years I have been unable to remember some of the lines.)When we were small, we used to go
To Doncaster. I’ve often seen
This prototype – first saw it, oh,
When both of us were young and green.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
An Indian file of Tom Thumbs
On the flat plain of the engine-shed.
A railway cat pauses in mid-toilette
To wave a languid paw in languid air:
“You realise, I own the joint
But be my guest!” Thank you, cat.
We take the point, and switch
Into the farrier sounds of stables:
Distant voices, desultory laughter,
The clonking of desultory hammers,
Smoke curling from tobacco-stained fingers to rafters,
Dust-motes – flies in golden amber –
And heat, warm as treacle.
Carthorse coal-engines, unkempt and unhurried
Stained with the sweat of railway toil,
Ease all their muscles, ignored and unworried,
In rows black and earthy as the soil
Exotic as potatoes.
A carthorse in the line lets free
A stream of scalding boiling pee
And sighs in contentment.
“Hey, you lads down there! Take care!
Take care ’E doesn’t ’ave you!
’E’s up at t’ top end there –
There’s a new A-2 up there!
“What? Eh? Ooh? – a new A-2! Where? Where?
What’s its name?”
“Eh, don’t ask me! I only work here!”
True, for shame,
You boiler-suited Yorkshire serpent!
You tell us that the “Plant” has fruited!
Such advice
For Innocents in Paradise
Where “Trespassers are prosecuted”
(Or, alternatively, booted
Right back home on the next train).
“Where are you from?” – but off we go! “Hey, lad!
“Where are you from?” “Manchester”. “You must be mad” –
But no, it’s merely jungle fever
Here endemic in this Yorkshire Congo
Where the smoke lianas furl
In steamy heat to sunburst yellow
Curling round an oak-tree brown
Mahogany or spotted liver
. . . . . . .
Bearing gifts of cheap-day tickets
Which our failing railway needs,
For such ivory exotic
We will swap our native beads.
But where, oh where the bead that draws us like a target?
For here in row on row are mounted
Ancient and anonymous
Black and battered beads, discounted
On the railway abacus.
Dare we stop, we’d hear them sighing
“Once our world was green and gay.
On the great expresses flying
Every dog can have his day”.
Poor old dogs! They’re here encumbered
With an age of railway grime.
We ignored them as they slumbered
Dreaming of a better time.
Pace, ancient monuments:
Our ignorance was young and blameless;
Doubtless in some hall of fame you’re numbered
But alas, in here you’re nameless!
This row then? But no, “Old Mother Rileys”, poor dears,
Dreary, black and frowsty, and feeling their years,
Wearing hats grotesque as flowerpot chimneys,
Not even respectably suburban, poor old dears,
But back and dead, flat-footed and weary
From a Saturday shopping in Sheffield.
One raises strength enough for a sharp "Tut tut"
Of disapproval, then relapses into gloom.
No sunlight here for them, poor things,
But yet, beyond them, there indeed the sunlight rings –
Just guess for whom!
And someone there
Is raising a diabolical clamour
With an often misdirected hammer
Judging by the use of phrases
Which we’re not supposed to know.
There it’s but a sunbeam lazes
So
. . . . . . . . . .
And – Look at this!
Could I but spin
From such small adult skill as mine
From youth and sunlight
And indeed from such a distance
Enchantment quite so lyrical, or yet so elegant a line?
Where we? Other than, of course
A la recherche de temps perdu?
Well, kids today have other fish to fry
But then, perforce,
We boiled a different kettle,
So enamoured by these iron graces
Attended, and so well attended, for the evening races,
Curried to high and gleaming fettle
By stable-hands, trainers, jockeys and fitters
Are thoroughbreds all, fretting to show their paces,
Horses, surely, of no mere base metal,
For see, oh see, how it glitters!
Beneath smoke-canopies of milk
Now soured to cream in summer heat
Sunlight golden flecks and dapples
Boiler-barrels round as apples!
Round as apples! – green, sweet …
Even urchins in an urban orchard know
That when temptation beckons – GO!
Hands to your partners, once again,
Down the line with book and pen.
Dante, Airborne, Chamossaire,
Owen Tudor over there,
Minoru and Isinglass
(Once at Gorton) now we pass;
The brilliant blue of Golden Shuttle,
Green again of Captain Cuttle,
Robert the Devil – chance your arm
Round its tender, and – 526 Sugar Palm!
It’s true!
High-varnished, sticky-creamy as a marron glace,
The new A-2!
“Little buggers!” Who spoke?
From a face framed in the fetlock feet
Of Robert the Devil –
A voice from the pit:
”Watch it,
You’ll cop it when ’E catches yer!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
We’re intrepid little bees!
Watch it indeed! What else are we doing?
For see, it’s moving, so steaming,
L.N.E.R., out in the sunlight gleaming,
High on the tender all a-glitter –
Follow, follow! Behind the buffer-beam we skitter
And we’re all – demolished!
Lo! hard and round as a bowler hat,
The hard and rotund foreman: “Hey, you! OUT!”
Half a dozen heads of steam
Deflate to instant sobriety
Bobbing and nodding before this massive Mandarin.
A dozen bound and Chinese feet
Take backward and reluctant paces
In slow, slow retreat
(Down, of course, a different row).
Hyperion, Sun Stream …
“Scram!” snorts Sugar Palm with a stop of steam.
Colombo, Colorado, Bayardo,
A gleam of blue – Unnamed A-4???
No, the W-1! “Right, OUT!!!”
And that was THAT!
The lions scuffle! Whoosh, out. “Goodbye, cat!”
“No trouble, come again”.
So to the station
In a state of exaltation
And a corporation
Trolleybus …
A final gloat, on railway tea,
A final gloat! – the new A-2
To puff us up to Holbeck, oh yes
We’ve Sugar Palm on the Leeds express
To finish the day on the L.M.S.
We’re going the “great way round”, no less.
But far and away is the L.M.S.
When riding a serpent plumed with steam
Riding a serpent all agleam
With Sugar Palm, Sugar Palm, clean and sleek,
The diamond head of the following yellow,
Leaning away from the varnished teak
The creak of the train, the curves to follow,
The curves to follow, the day’s declining
Into A-4 blue.
Clear and fine, deep and inimitable
Vernal green, clean and flowing,
The L.N.E.R., like the spring, illimitable?
Not so, not so, not so. Slowing, slowing
Over the junction we cautiously press
Into Holbeck station - L.M.S.!
Disembark in a cloud of steam and euphoria.
“Farewell, Sugar Palm!”
From classic winner now to cranky donkey!
Farewell, Sugar Palm!
“Train for Halifax, Rochdale and Manchester Victoria!”
“Farewell, Sugar Palm!”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
In the Lancashire train now cribbed and crabbed,
We’re off on the Lanky, clanky clonky
Leaden Lanky, whose iron donkey
Wheezes and moans, a reluctant mule
Like a slothful schoolboy back to school.
But there’s alchemy out of Holbeck station
Where, to the west, the sun declines,
Splendid and subtle the transmutation
Gilding even the Lanky lines.
For see, the sun reluctantly lingers
Loath to finish a magical day.
He touches the track with gleamiong fingers -
L.M.S., L.M.S. all of the way?
Well, what was the way we came this morning?
Todmorden, Halifax, Sowerby Bridge.
What did the train declaim this morning?
Todmorden, Halifax, Sowerby Bridge.
But what will the train declaim this evening?
L.N.E.R., L.N.E.R.!
What will the brain retain this evening?
L.N.E.R., L.N.E.R.!
Window jammed, we’re sulphuretting
Now in Wigan coal and all
Soot from tunnels, not forgetting
Itchy cinders sharp and small,
Here’s a shower, more to follow,
Past the ears and down the collar
March a grand army of ants
To conquer shirt and vest and pants,
But they can keep each conquered stitch
Of boys too tired to scratch an itch.
Bleary red-rimmed miners’ eyes
Read “Victoria”. We’ve arrived!
Hey, where's my ticket? Have I lost it?
No, it's here - surprise, surprise!
Hand it in, and then a trot
- Automatons, as like as not -
To the 37B;
Itchy fingers, black and sooty,
Sticky still from butty-jam,
Fumble for the last three-halfpence
For the home-ride on the tram.
Then bath and bed. The chatter-train of conversation
Slowing, slowing, slows and stops.
Engine quite run out of steam
The fire of day has long since dropped.
Long since dropped. These memories now are pretty old,
And yet I take them from this tissue-verse unrolled
And find them fragrant as an engine
Apple-green and gold!
[EDITOR’S NOTE: “this prototype” in line 3 refers to a model of a Peppercorn class A-2 locomotive, which Croghan intended to show to audiences when reciting the poem.]
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