Ah! The masterly pen of Kenneth Slessor! Reading these posts I've just had a few moments of pure schooldays nostalgia!!
While we're all sharing our favourites, this is mine. It is non-rhyming - so at the risk of prodding the bear ...
THE NIGHT-RIDE (Kenneth Slessor)
Gas flaring on the yellow platform; voices running up and down;
Milk-tins in cold dented silver; half-awake I stare,
Pull up the blind, blink out - all sounds are drugged;
The slow blowing of passengers asleep;
Engines yawning; water in heavy drips;
Black, sinister travellers, lumbering up the station,
One moment in the window, hooked over bags;
Hurrying, unknown faces - boxes with strange labels -
All groping clumsily to mysterious ends,
Out of the gaslight, dragged by private Fates.
Their echoes die. The dark train shakes and plunges;
Bells cry out; the night-ride starts again.
Soon I shall look out into nothing but blackness,
Pale, windy fields. The old roar and knock of the rails
Melts in dull fury. Pull down the blind. Sleep. Sleep.
Nothing but grey, rushing rivers of bush outside.
Gaslight and milk-cans. Of Rapptown I recall nothing else.
It is such a powerful word picture - I can hear it, smell it, feel it. Don't you just love "engines yawning" ... and "rushing rivers of bush"?
Whenever I read this I think of our trip a few years ago on the Indian Pacific - with station stops in the wee small hours. No gaslight or milk-cans, but the atmosphere is still there!
Cheers, Shelley