**CLPRA scripts are working drafts for recording sessions. Recorded performances may vary due to editing for broadcast.** Links key: CLP Atlas Informational (with hover) Online Books CLP Author page CLP Intern

Virna Woods (1864-1903) http://tinyurl.com/VWoods

Click the below to hear radio segment.

Oregon Express

From "On the Oregon Express," 1895.

Reader: Jessica Teeter

In the waning years of the nineteenth century, it was easy for Californians to resent the power of the railroads. But was just as easy to be seduced by their promise of adventure.

Poet Virna Woods captures the dreamy romance of railroad travel in a sonnet, which conjures the magical specter of night-shrouded Mount Shasta as seen from a private compartment aboard the Oregon Express.

Lying at ease within my curtained bed,
I watch the moonlit landscape glimmer by:
Soft-shadowed meadows, and the hills that lie
Around them, with misty foliage spread;
Towns silent and adream; and overhead
A sombre sky that stirs with such a grace
As flushed uncertainly the pallid face
Of Jairus' daughter rising from the dead.

Far off, Mount Shasta swims into view,
Its mist-hung summit towering over all;
The sun swings slow upon the mountain's crest,
Against a sky that burns to orange hue,
And for a moment, like a silver ball
By hand of Titan flung, remains at rest.

Virna Woods is remembered for her Greek drama The Amazons. Her sonnet "On the Oregon Express" appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1895.