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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 10 (January 1, 1935)

The Trains of Long Ago

The Trains of Long Ago.
Here, in the dusk, with Memory's ear I listen
To voices of the past, soft-tuned and low;
I see again familiar eyes that glisten
With happy tears, to brim and overflow.
I feel handclasps that time nor space may sever,
I hear the pledges friends on friends bestow—
These stay with me, e'en though I lived for ever,
Fond geetings at the trains of long ago.
Far into stranger uplands I have travelled,
To peaks that fret the clouds they overgrow;
The secrets of dim valleys I've unravelled,
With furnace-fire and engine-stack aglow.
There where we thundred over straining bridges,
Or crept through tunnels, steadied down and slow—
I see them all again from Memory's ridges,
Those landmarks from the trains of long ago.
There may be some rare Paradise awaiting,
Some Heaven that, in life, we may not know,
Wherein there will be no more separating,
No rage of war, nor peace time's dragging woe.
How can I say, a simple human creature,
Whose vagralnt thoughts fade out like Summer snow?
But if there is, I hope They'll make a feature
Of railway jaunts, like I had long ago.