The Lone Cypress

I love this poem “From a railway carriage” by Robert Louis Stevenson. It a part of A Child's Garden of Verses.

Here goes:

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging alone like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river;
Each a glimpse and gone for ever.

This poem brings back old memories of my train journeys to the farm to see my grandparents. The only holiday destination I ever knew existed. How I would long to get on that bogie and start ordering my cheese toast and hot chocolate. However, I must admit, it never ever stopped at that, there always room for more in that little tummy. It’s weird how the appetite seems to increase two fold while travelling, mine sure did. I had to have my hands full and my mouth moving while gazing out of that big train window. Big black round eyes, peering out hoping to catch a glimpse of something new, how naive was i. Though it was the same old the route and even the bogie most of the times, the thrill of sitting by the window was an emotion indescribable.
Those fleeting moments that i captured all formed the base of my little stories that i had to tell my granddad, who i so eagerly awaited to see at the farm.

Oh those train journeys...i’d do anything to go back there again...