The Anti-Adlestrop

 A while back, I wrote about Edward Thomas's justly famous little poem 'Adlestrop' and posted another, very different Adlestrop poem by Peter Porter. Last night I came across a poem by Richard Wilbur that could be characterised as the anti-Adlestrop. It has the same four-quatrain structure, and, like Thomas's poem, it describes a train coming to a halt at an obscure station – but there all resemblance ends. Thomas's summer afternoon is replaced by winter dusk, his  heat by icy cold; no wildflowers, no rural view, no birdsong – in fact no sound, after the bang and hiss of the halting train. In place of sound, a sudden, far from comforting burst of colour, a 'purple, glowering blue' in 'the numb fields of the dark'. Yes, this is the anti-Adlestrop all right...

Stop

In grimy winter dusk
We slowed for a concrete platform;
The pillars passed more slowly;
A paper bag leapt up.

The train banged to a standstill.
Brake-steam rose and parted.
Three chipped-at blocks of ice
Sprawled on a baggage-truck.

Out in that glum, cold air
The broken ice lay glintless,
But the trucks were painted blue
On side, wheels and tongue,

A purple, glowering blue
Like the phosphorus of Lethe
Or Queen Persephone's gaze
In the numb fields of the dark.