And Its Planks

I have looked for Macaulay up and down:

In the lonely tree and at the railway crossing;

At the time of sunset, and at high noon.

Whatever State I looked in, he was not there.

What mattered sunset, what mattered morning,

He was not there, not there with his baggage of tradition, his library smile.

Ah, that Whig smile, now that it is not here—that is, his Whig smile.

What a vacancy there is in me this evening in Illinois

With sunset falling on a railway crossing, and its planks.