An old worn copy of Dante,
With its faded pencil notes,
But yet from out its pages
A stern high music floats.
And my thoughts, along with the music
Which the great sad poet sings,
Flow back to a time that mingles
With the crash of railway things.
A time as thin as a shadow,
And so very far away
That it seems but a strange faint echo
That is heard from a former day.
Only this copy of Dante,
Which I have not seen for years,
Brings back in fitful snatches
A season of hopes and fears.
When I would out and in from toiling
By the Tuscan followed be,
And slowly, slowly his music
Unfolded its secret to me.
Ah, these were years of striving
If striving were ever mine,
Yet my footsteps were led by the footsteps
Of the mighty Florentine.
He spake in an unknown language,
In a strange sad melody,
And I had to learn it as children
Their own by their mother's knee.
I went through the threefold vision
Of pain and sorrow and love,
And stood at last with the poet
In the paradise above.
And yet it but seems like a shadow
Of things that can never be—
Did I ever work on a railway?
And did Dante follow me?