The Night-Ride

"The Night-Ride" (1926) is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor.

It was originally published in the poet's collection Earth-Visitors : Poems, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.

Synopsis

The poem starts with a passenger on a train, watching other passengers on the platform, and waiting for the train to leave the station. Then the train moves off and the passenger pulls down the window blind and sleeps.

Critical reception

Chris Wallace-Crabbe stated that the poem "is successful not because Slessor has bluntly set out to find a viable analogy for his vision of life, but because it starts from a clear definition of local and specific perceptions. His magnificent verbal gifts are no longer wasted on the erection of pleasure domes in Neverneverland, but are devoted to recording the colours, shapes, surfaces of familiar things."The Literature of Australia edited by Geoffrey Dutton, Penguin, 1964. "Kenneth Slessor and the Powers of Language" by Chris Wallace-Crabe, pp.345-346 Accessed: 17 March 2026.

In his book Reading Australian Poetry Andrew Taylor commented "Slessor has been constantly praised for the immediacy of his observation of physical detail, a quality as apparent in 'The Night-Ride' as anywhere else."Reading Australian Poetry by Andrew Taylor, University of NSW Press, 1987, p.62 Accessed: 17 March 2026.

Publication history

After the poem's initial publication in Earth-Visitors : Poems in 1926 it was reprinted as follows:

One Hundred Poems : 1919–1939 by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1944 The Boomerang Book of Australian Poetry edited by Enid Moodie Heddle, Longmans Green, 1956 New Land, New Language : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1957 Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968 The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972 Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1975 The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Melbourne University Press, 1980 The World's Contracted Thus edited by J. A. McKenzie and J. K. McKenzie, Heinemann Education, 1983 Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984 My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985 Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Mark O’Connor, Oxford University Press, 1988 The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, Faber, 1991 The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry edited by John Tranter and Philip Mead, Penguin, 1991 Kenneth Slessor : Poetry, Essays, War Despatches, War Diaries, Journalism, Autobiographical Material and Letters edited by Dennis Haskell, University of Queensland Press, 1991 Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann, Heinemann, 1991 Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 1994 Kenneth Slessor : Collected Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1994 The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English edited by John Thieme, Arnold, 1996 Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998 The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009 Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011 Sense, Shape, Symbol : An Investigation of Australian Poetry edited by Brian Keyte, Phoenix Education, 2013 Love is Strong as Death edited by Paul Kelly, Hamish Hamilton, 2019

Notes You can read the full text of the poem on the All Poetry website.

The Night-Ride

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