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New Zealand Verse
A Song Of The Main Trunk.

You may hear a song in the silent night,
When the world is hushed in sleep!
Where the mountains rise to the
darkened skies,
And a silent vigil keep;
A song of steam and iron wheels, of
echoing hill and glen,
Of grinding brakes and swaying cars,
and the world of busy men.
Let the morepork cry in the darkness
deep,
Let the night bird call his mate;
Let the heavens frown and the hills
look down
On the fire-god incarnate;
Whose thunder wakes the drowsy earth,
whose savage music thrills
From the harbour bar to the triple
peaks, and the port in the ranging
hills.
So scream at the lonely winding road,
Trespassing your domain;
Let the storm-god rage and our strength
engage,
We scorn his sleet and rain;
Let the mountain torrents surge and
run their mad eternal course,
But steam and steel and the skill of men
will mock their futile force.
Till the dawn break through in the
streaming east,
Till we quit the mountain trail;
Our lamp shall light the lonely night,
Where swerves the silver rail;
In tune with singing, living steam our
hundred wheels shall say:
We have forged a link from shore to
shore that shall stand till judgment
day.
And that is the song you may hear at
night,
When the world is hushed in sleep;
Where the mountains rise to the
darkened skies,
And a silent vigil keep;
A song of steam and iron wheels, of
echoing hill and glen;
Of life and love and skill and strength,
and of hope in the hearts of men.

—Allan F. Cunningham.