"Stags!" your rapid forms revealing,
Show awhile your front so bright,
Then from your pursuers stealing,
Vanish sudden out of sight.
Leave all meaner things, my St John,
For the locomotive race;
Post your tin upon the engine,
Go ahead, and keep the pace.
At a Railway Monarch's splendour
Envious squires and nobles stare;
Even the Hebrew gewgaw vender
Turns sharebroker in despair.
Now no more the Ragfair dealer
Hints with horrid breath, "Old Clo';"
Putting forth another feeler,
"Any shares?" he whispers low.
Every paper's a prospectus,
Nostrums, news, are at an end;
"Easy shaving" don't affect us,
Silent even "The Silent Friend."
Morison resigns his bubbling,
Lazenby has lost his zest;
Widow Welch has ceased from troubling,
Weary Moses is at rest.
Every station, age, and gender,
Deep within the torrent dip;
Even our children, young and tender,
Play at games of nursery scrip.
Over meadows, moors, and mosses,
Quagmires black, and mountains grey,
Careless where or how it crosses,
Speculation finds the way.
Every valley is exalted,
Every mountain is made low;
Where we once were roughly jolted,
Light and lively now we go.