Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-11-07
THE PHANTOM TRAIN-A NEW
YORK EUPERS rITH0N.

A writer in the Albany On. " Eoening
Times relates conversation with super
stitious night Waterman on the New 7 ork
Central Railroad. Said the Waterman:
81 believe in spirits and ghosts. | know
such things exist. If you will come up in
April will convince you" He then told
of the phantom train that every year comes
up the road with the body of Abraham
Lincoln. Regularly in the month of April,
about midnight, the air on the track be-
comes very keen and cutting. On either
side it is warm aud still. Every watch
man, when he feels this air, steps of the
track and sits down to watch. Soon after
the pilot engine, with long black streamers,
and a band with black instruments, playing
dirges, grinning skeletons sitting all about,
will pass up noiselessly, and the very air
grows black. If it is moonlight, clouds
always come over the moon, and the music
seems to linger, as if frozen with horror. A
few moments after and the phantom train
glides by. Flags and streamers hang about.
The track ahead seems covered with black
carpet, and the wheels are draped with the
same. The coffin of the murdered Lincoln
is seen lying on the centre of car, and all
about it in the air and the train behind are
fdSO AuAnUClS Va GIUO-NOASO0 SOAhO
with collins on their backs, Others leaning
on them. II seems then that all the vast
armies that died during the war are escort
ing the phantom train OF the President.
The wind, if blowing, dies away at once,
and over all the cir solemn hush, almost
sitting, prevails. If q train were passing,
its noise would be drowned in the silence,
and the phantom train would ride over it.
Clocks and watches always stop, and when
ooked at are found to be from five to eight
minutes behind. Everywhere on the road,
about the 9th of April, the time of watches
and trains is found suddenly behind. This,
said the leading watchman, was from the
passage of the phantom train. A somewhat
similar superstition exists III Georgia, and
is thus related by VIII. Wallace Harvey:
THE INVISIBLE TRAIN-A GEORGIA sUPERsTI-
TION,
At the dead of the night, the dead of the night,
There a sound along the rails,
And the creaking of whirlIng crank
Like the Tapping OF iron Halls.
With the long. low roll that heralds the storm
Over sunhurnt fields of grain,
With the sullen roar of rain in the wood,
Comes the invisible train.
There's the trembling ground, the swirls Of cir,
And the shout OF the guage between
The quivering rails, but never a light
Or shadow or specter is seen.
It stops nor stays BY station nor town,
But sweeps in its viewless flight
To city whose beautiful walls are hewa
From splendid quarries of light
And the white moon spreads, as the sound goes by,
A STROUD of silver and gray,
For the night lies Geld on the lap of the earth,
Like the corps OF beautiful day.
1t bears away, in invisible freight,
The treasures of failing men
The countless opportunities lost,
And the beautiful might-have been.
The fruitless dead, who have died in youth,
Ere the grain of life had come;
Painters whose pictures were only dreams,
And poets whose lips are dumb.
The brave young dead, the fair young dead,
Whose hearts were thrOng of love,
That folded their arms in the morning of life,
To pass to that city above.
Maiden and wife in the robe and crown,
Ard lips like blood of the rose;
Beautiful babes, th 1t died in smiles,
Like light that comes and goes.
And often we see through the dead of the night
Though the eyes are closed in sleep,
| The phantom train with its precious freight
From a lOwland still and deep.
| And we dream till the morning, bright and warm
| Lies over the church-yard sod,
| And awakes the Lazarus sleep of night,
With reyiving hand Of God