Carl Sandburg’s speaker is on a sleek express train, one of the nation’s proudest machines, hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and darkening air. The ride feels thrilling and modern: fifteen steel coaches, a thousand passengers, people laughing in the dining cars and sleepers. But the speaker can’t help seeing through all that speed. Those coaches, he says, will become scrap and rust; those laughing travelers will pass to ashes. That cold fact sits beside the journey’s energy. Then a simple question—“Where are you going?”—gets an almost deflating answer: “Omaha.” The mood mixes excitement with melancholy. The train rushes forward, but everyone aboard is still moving toward the same quiet end, whether they feel it or not.
Limited — Summary
I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers : " Omaha."