The Bloody Train Poem by David Lewis Paget

By a stream of running water,
Underneath a moonless sky,
Like a nightmare of a slaughter
The blood-spattered train goes by.
Where the rails have long been rusted
All along the valley plain,
There the train, so blood encrusted
Will repeat its run again.

I can hear the rails humming
To the rhythm of its wheels,
As the train, it keeps on coming,
As the driver's mind, it reels,
And he stares out through the darkness
With each glaring, bloodshot eye,
He will have to face the horror
When he stops the train, or die.

There's a skull smashed on the boiler,
There's an arm caught on a ledge,
There is blood and guts and gore all spattered,
On the front, and wedged,
When the train ploughed through the gangers who
Were working on the track,
Then their blood sprayed through his cabin
And he didn't dare look back.

Then the fireman had to vomit as
Their blood sprayed in his face,
But he heaped the coals upon it just
To keep their frantic pace,
And now both their eyes are crazy at
The slaughter they have done,
They are bound for hell, not heaven
On this final ghostly run.

It's been sixty seven years now since
That train raced down that track,
And those seven men were slaughtered,
But they keep on coming back,
By a stream of running water,
Underneath a moonless sky,
Like a nightmare of a slaughter
The blood-spattered train goes by.

25 November 2017