The Evening Train

This poem is not mounted on a page of the book, but was inserted between pages 64 and 65.

By Anne Campbell[1]

When the evening train comes in 

To that little country town,

There are ten or more by the depot door,

And the folks walk up and down.

The bus to the hotel

Has a passenger again

The town awakes and a stroll it takes

To wait for the evening train.

When the evening train comes in

To that village on the hill,

They walk in twos to get the news

For there’s mail for Jack and Jill.

The postoffice you’ll find

On a street that still called Main,

And the folks don’t fail to get the mail

That comes on the evening train!

When the evening train comes in

And briefly stops to throw

The mailbag down to that country town

That once I used to know,

There’s a letter lying there

To the folks who wait in vain

For a wanderer who longs once more

To wait for the evening train.

            - [unclear] 1924[2]

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[1] Anne Campbell Stark was born in 1889 in rural Michigan. She married George Stark, an editor of The Detroit News. In 1922, George’s paper began looking for a second staff poet, and Anne jumped at the chance. She called her homely verse “everyday poetry.” It was an apt description in more ways than one; she published a poem every weekday for decades. Her last contribution came in 1984.

[2] Since this clipping was not attached to a page, the 1924 date sheds no light on the timeline of Clare’s book, except to show that perhaps by 1924 she had stopped gluing articles onto pages