Winter Words, Op. 52: 2. Midnight on the Great Western (The Journeying Boy)

In the third-class seat sat
The journeying boy
And the roof-lamp’s oily flame
Played down on his listless form and face
Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going
Or whence he came, or whence he came
In the band of his hat
The journeying boy
Had a ticket stuck; and a string
Around his neck bore the key of his box
That twinkled gleams of the
Lamp’s sad beams
Like a living thing, a living thing
What past can be yours, O journeying boy
Towards a world unknown
Who calmly, as if incurious quite
On all at stake, can undertake
This plunge alone?
Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy
Our rude realms far above
Whence with spacious vision
You mark and mete
This region of sin that you find you in
But are not of, but are not of?