Song of the Engineer

Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 - 1912)  Thu 21 Feb 1907  Page 2

I love the feel of the throttle,
The glare of the raining fire,
The whirl and grip
When the drivers slip,
And the sand gets under the tire.

The purr of the thinned exhaust,
The lurch from side to side,
As I hook her back
To centre rack.
And open the throttle wide.

The long, swift glide on the grade,
With the wind of night in my hair ;
The power I feel
O'er the quivering steel
When she checks as I give her the "air:"

The rush under bridge, over stream,
The whirl past cottage and farm :
The anxious gaze
Through the headlight's blaze
For the gleam from a semaphore arm.

Then I let her drift through the yand.
And down from my seat I climb ;
A slave to my hand.
She, panting, stands
At her journey's end—on time.

—J. C. Sanderson.