The Train Among The Hills

Vast, unrevealed, in silence and the night
Brooding, the ancient hills commune with sleep.
Inviolate the solemn valleys keep
Their contemplation. Soon from height to height
Steals a red finger of mysterious light,
And lion-footed through the forests creep
Strange mutterings; till suddenly, with sweep
And shattering thunder of resistless flight
And crash of routed echoes, roars to view,
Down the long mountain gorge the Night Express
Freighted with fears and tears and happiness.
The dread form passes; silence falls anew.
And lo! I have beheld the thronged, blind world
To goals unseen from God’s hand onward hurled.