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--chosen-work--
At the Town Station
I remember a breathless day
Of squinting eyes and melting tar
And handkerchieves
And fireweed on the siding banks
Of languid porters sweating with the mail
The crippled clatter of their wheels
Disturbing in my waking dream
The murmuring of flies and bees
The hissing of the distant steam
From shunting tanks
Remember too the tumbled grass
Young love's sweet ache and promises
That were not kept
While rampant on embankments high
The nettles grew and fell and roses pale
As pale in twilit gardens blew
We swore what all youth swears
But ny the railway track we heard
The message that the hour declares
Goodbye, goodbye
Loudspeaker calls for who knows where
And silent groups of travellers
Bestir themselves
Like shocked survivors of a blast
Emerging into light to scan the rail
The parting moment long deferred
The express sliding round the bend
That sepia moment fixed in one
High summer's day and childhood's end
Had come at last
cf Up Train