The Book of the Native

by Charles G.D. Roberts

 

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,
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    And lion-footed thorugh 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
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    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.