THE iron chariots bowling on From Albany and Stonington, Are chiming with their thousand wheels, And within, the living cargo reels And nods about familiarly, Each to the other, as he were a brother, And all as the mist falls silently. Five hundred noses point ahead, And a thousand eye-lids closed, as dead As already the silver coin had pressed, And sealed them in their final rest; So chill, from the mist of the neighboring deep, Is the nodding, nibbling, icy sleep; And dreams confusing go and come, Which blessings are and a curse to some; But all with a feeling of 'Devil-may-care,' Peculiar to the rail-road car, Or such as you fancy a witch's are On a broom-stick ride in the midnight air; Some 'promenade all' at Symms's Hole, Or, 'Hands all around' at the Northern Pole; The spot, where the earth having come to a crisis The Sun goes around on the tops of the ices, A weary Anchises; Ices, like Alps, of all shapes and devices; The pyramid, dome, the temple, and all That seemed 'frozen music' to Madame DE STAEL; While cluster of stars, with their beautiful eyes, Just peep in between, with a kind of surprise; Some fading, some flashing, all grouping anew, Like the lights of a city, when passing: in view, Or laughing young girls, all crowding for places In windows brim full of (God bless!) their sweet faces; And thus night and day, vis-à-vis to each other, Waltz round the horizon like sister and brother; While deep in the vault, with a hand unseen, (The 'unknown God' of the shifting scene.) From the morning of Time, one star has stood And ruled that glittering multitude. Or, some may prefer, as it's here rather cold, To mount on a streamer of crimson or gold, And shooting off in a shaft of light, Ride tangent up to the top o' the night, And dip in the slant of the Sun, as he Wheels up somewhere in the Indian sea; Or wink to the wink of a new-made star, Not yet rolled round, and 'caviare To the general;' but here with a jar That murders sleep, old Beelzebub, With a kind of 'hip-hurrah!' hubbub, A snort and a scream, has startled all; And the lady in the travelling shawl Has dropped her babe, too drugged to squall; And stiff as a shaking Quaker sits The gentleman in summer 'fits,' No'th-East by East, a point too far; His dream is true, that he left last night New-York, at eighty of Fahrenheit-- And his coat in the baggage-car!