And piled the brown earth o'er his funnel,
How his foe o'er the Great-Western metals would tread,
Shrieking triumph through cutting and tunnel.
Lightly they'll talk of him now he is gone,
For the cheap "Narrow Gauge" has outstayed him,
Yet BULL might have found, had he let it go on,
That BRUNEL's Big Idea would have paid him!
But the battle is ended, our task is done;
After forty years' fight he's retiring.[1]
This hour sees thy triumph, O STEPHENSON;