James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
September 27The Song of the Railroad
By Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (18091885)
W
And song is ever young,
The bravest birth of later time
Must not remain unsung;
A poet shall be born to us,
For living men to hail,
Dismounted from old Pegasus
To mount the fiery rail!
And loves are side by side,
We are the sunbeams of the land
On which the angels glide;
The husband to his anxious wife,
The friend to friendly care,
The lover to his life of life
On burning wings we bear!
That sail the solid earth
On sacred parting hours we burst,
Or mar the moment’s mirth;
The dearest and the longest lost
Pass by within a span
Yet know it not; of little cost
We make the heart of man!
Hard pace and little pause;
We will not let the world forget
Her nature’s motive laws.
Like her we hasten day by day,
Nor rest at any goal;
The sun himself has moved, they say,
Since planets round him roll!