AN ALPINE RAILWAY.
Abominable work of man,
Defacing nature where he can
With engineering;
On plain or hill he never fails
To run his execrable rails;
Coals, dirt, smoke, passengers and mails,
At once appearing.
To Alpine summits daily go
The locomotives to and fro.
What desecration!
Where playful kids once blithely skipped,
Where rustic goatherds gaily tripped,
Where clumsy climbers sometimes slipped,
He builds a station.
Up there, where once upon a time
Determined mountaineers would climb
To some far châlet;
Up there, above the carved wood toys,
Above the beggars, and the boys
Who play the Ranz des Vaches—such noise
Down in the Thal, eh?
Up there at sunset, rosy red,
And sunrise—if you're out of bed—
You see the summit,
Majestic, high above the vale.
It is not difficult to scale—
The fattest folk can go by rail
To overcome it.
For nothing, one may often hear,
Is sacred to the engineer;
He's much too clever.
Well, I must hurry on again,
That mountain summit to attain,
Good-bye. I'm going by the train.
I climb it? Never!
"FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD."
Tourist from London (to young local Minister). "How quiet and peaceful it seems here!"
Minister. "Eh, Friend, it seems peacefu'. Wha wad think we were within Seven Miles o' Peebles!"