A Gentleman Knows

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased. Deny it.’ cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye.
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
And abide the end.’

‘Have they no refuge or resource.’ cried Scrooge.

‘Are there no prisons.’ said the Spirit, turning on him
for the last time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses.’”
- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Elegy in a Railroad Station

(Broad Street, Philadelphia, obiit 1952)

I’ve always been in love with railroad stations:

By no means least of man’s superb creations.

Particularly I rate high

Old London termini

Liverpool Street (cathedral of catarrh)

Where antique bathtubs in the cellar are;

And you may know

Altars of the great gods To and Fro

At Paddington, Euston, King’s Cross, Gare du Nord,

La Salle Street in Chicago, Windsor Montreal,

The Lackawana on Hoboken shore,

The B & O beloved Mount Royal, Baltimore.

Even little Roslyn, on fish-shaped Paumanok,

Where the Long Island falters, still in hock –

Too many I love, to list, but of them all

None ever gave me quite such sublimation

As Broad Street Station.

Maybe tops of all I rank it

Because it was there, by jeepers,

Walt climbed aboard the Pullman Palace Sleepers

And tucked his noble beard outside the blanket.

I repeat your glory, Broad Street Station!

The proper shrine, the true Main Line,

Of Immortality the Intimation;

Such offsteam blowing,

Such bells, and hells of coming and going,

Suburban cowcatchers’ dainty snouts,

Beautiful barytone All abooaard shouts,

Drive wheels and firebox glowing.

Nothing was so holy as the local to Paoli

(15 and 45) when were youngalive

For Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr

Or anywhere along the P.R.R.

Then as child, boy, student, family man,

We were too self-occupied to scan

That gigantic arch of joys and pains

When trains were really trains.

There beneath tall wheels, fierce jets of stream,

We guessed the bulk and power of a dream;

To shorten space and anguish to appease

The engine rests at crouch and purrs at ease.

People cry God bless you’s and So long’s,

Gates contract or widen like lazy-tongs—

Goodbye, Goodbye! No wonder I

Preserve in pure imagination

My memory of Broad Street Station.

-Christopher Morley

Work Shirt, late 19th c.

University of Pennsylvania athletic sweater, c.1890

US Navy sailor’s uniform, mid 19th c.

Chasuble, Italian, mid 18th c.

The Peacock Male

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Each day we die a little more ;

Stale custom takes its toll:

It is the unexpected Thing

That brings life to the soul.

-Harry Kemp (1883 – 1960)