The pounding of wheels and the smell of hot dope,
The rattles -- the jolts and the dust --
The slack running in on each downward slope,
The grease and the cinders and rust.
The muffled-like click of the old telegraph
In the shack where of't gathered round --
The hardships we bore and yet lived to laugh --
The fellowship dear and profound.

The smile and the wave as we passed swiftly by
The homesteader back in the bush;
The thrill that we felt with home drawing nigh
Then the stopping-- the silence -- the hush.
yes -- I doze in my chair and my time is my own
But I live in the past so it seems.
Thrilling once more to the joys that I've known
As I live them again -- in my dreams.