If an emotion pulls into your mental station
Like a steam locomotive, whatever dream motive
I second the motion, I say, “All aboard!”
Why do I, I who try not to die,
Welcome a hurricane? Waves walk, trees fly,
Houses unbuild. I don’t know why, but: All aboard!
Why do I, bride-bridled and stably stabled,
Let other girls turn my head to no purpose nor bed?
I don’t know; it’s a ride! All aboard!
Why, in hot sun or cold rain, do I take my stand
Protesting war not my war in some other land?
I don’t know; need a hand? All aboard!
Why even think? And why, from thought’s rubble,
Write without fright, and freight me with trouble?
Listen, that whistle that bristles with power! – We now are
All aboard!
This poem was published in Bewildering Stories #822. It is a paean to action, excitement, adventure, exploration and self-exploration, including both brave moral stands and dangerous irresponsibility. There is something very human in the reckless drive for experience and achievement, from Pandora’s box and Eve’s apple to the Manhattan Project, the Apollo Program and Nike’s “Just Do It”. This drive can’t be suppressed without warping or destroying the human, but it can certainly be channeled into constructive rather than destructive activities… although who is to say which is which? And then this becomes yet another area for ruthless research.
Technically the poem has formal elements rather than being “formal verse” as such. It has a scattering of rhyme and a ragged rhythm; each stanza has a similar length and structure, ending in the “All aboard!” Tricks of rhetoric, designed like all formal poetry to make the passage memorable and able to be recited. But is that enough to designate it a formal poem? I’m dubious.
Form in Formless Times 