Tainted black, yellow summer morning
Rapeseed fields and quills of porcupine
St Paul's steeple, hassocks, cassocks, old hymn books
Incense and musky smells all intertwine.

Green and red house boats and barges heaped full of coal
Cheerily chugging 'neath cumulus clouds
Ropes carve out signatures in sandstone bridges
All along the tow path of the Leeds- Liverpool Canal

Hammers in the foundries tapping out a descant
To cotton loom melodies and weaving shed choirs
Bleach works spitting out their chlorinated effluent
Stokers of furnaces feeding up the fires

Tainted black, yellow summer morning
Charmingly squinting sideways on life
Rolling on forward, like the 8.12 to Manchester
Duchess of Rutland of the Coronation Class

02/02/2002

Author's Note: 1. (for non (UK) trainspotters) ...steam locomotives were grouped into 'classes'...and also given names....the Duchess of Rutland belonged to the "Coronation" class) 2. A horse could pull a barge with a load of 50 tons

Posted on 02/02/2002
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