Oh, an ugly thing is an iron rail, <br />Black, with its face to the dust. <br />But it carries a message where winged things fail; <br />It crosses the mountains, and catches the trail, <br />While the winds and the sea make sport of a sail; <br />Oh, a rail is a friend to trust. <br /> <br />The iron rail, with its face to the sod, <br />Is only a bar of ore; <br />Yet it speeds where never a foot has trod; <br />And the narrow path where it leads, grows broad; <br />And it speaks to the world in the voice of God; <br />That echoes from shore to shore. <br /> <br />Though the iron rail, on the earth down flung, <br />Seems kin to the loam and the soil, <br />Wherever its high shrill note is sung, <br />Out of the jungle fair homes have sprung, <br />And the voices of babel find one tongue, <br />In the common language of toil. <br /> <br />Of priest, and warrior, and conquering king, <br />Of Knights of the Holy Grail, <br />Of wonders of winter, and glories of spring, <br />Always and ever the poets sing; <br />But the great God-Force, in a lowly thing, <br />I sing, in my song of the rail.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-of-the-rail/
