Alan Sullivan taking dictation from RPW in Key West:
The night train to Delhi seems to me a very evocative poem, both of night travel on a train, and of a transitional condition of mind in the traveler. I think I'd like to comment on each of the stanzas.
The first two lines seem to me an extremely good glimpse of the sort of thing you see out a train window at night. The next two lines gave me a little trouble. I accept the interesting coinage "underthigh" because that seems quite exact. But the fourth line of the poem "half lulls the careless heart to ease" made me come back to it again and again, trying to be sure. The question is whether the heart is already without care before the train's motion lulls it. I find that unclear, and I wish it could be simplified, because this line is very artfully reprised in the last line of the poem: "with half my heart I wish to be."
In the second stanza I take it we're looking at a highway which passes through a gap between mountains. I'm less sure about the third line of the third stanza. I don't know what "sine-waving" might signify. It's something in trigonometry that I can't find. But I do see that the stars keep pace with the train, whereas other things fall behind at one speed or another.
The next stanza is particularly graceful and clear. And in the next we learn more than we've learned before about the traveler's state of mind. He's in transition to Delhi, but he's also in transition between his former life and what his life now will be when he arrives. In his sleepy state both his past life and his life to come are vague and unreal.
I make one little objection to this stanza. I think the special meaning of the word "untouchable" in India makes that word an unfortunate choice when something like "incalculable" is meant. The last stanza is very gracefully written, and as I pointed out before, it closes with an interesting reprise of an earlier line.
RPW
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