“THAT TRAIN FROM TIMARU."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12712, 6 August 1919, Page 4

“THAT TRAIN FROM TIMARU."

The long drawn out. agonies of the railway journey between Christchurch and Timaru are graphically .and poetically expressed in the following verses which have been sent to us:— One morning—oh, so early—ere my wisdom teeth I grew, I embarked for Christchurch City in a train from Timaru. ■ I wa.3 going to get spliced, and did not 'writ for the express. And that would poke about a bit, I easily con Id guess; But when I gaily lit my pipe and skimmed my “Herald” through, How little I foresaw that awful trip from Timaru. Wo shuffled through the cutting at a fairly decent gait, And the first two dozen stoppages did not seem very great; . But when we’d been two hours out. and made about ten miles, And wandered up a side track for a load of unbarked piles. When we’d started, stopped and 1 jolted, until life a burden grew, I began to blanky-bla-nk that early train from Timaru. I’ve sailed the Mississippi on a washed-out lumber raft, I’ve crossed' the Western Ocean in a halfwrecked two-knot craft, I’ve a wagged across Australia with no tucker and no “ stuff,” I’ve punched a team of bullocks right from Nelson to the Bluff; But the most unhappy pilgrimage that ever I wont through Was that mushroom poking snailway crawl from good old Timaru. With now the engine la advance and then the luggage van, Wo worked that southern country like sc tinker's caravan, We jolted up. to lonely farms to earn a brace of bobs. We strolled around the universe prospecting for odd jobs; And when those cockies saw MB there they ga-zedd and said! ‘“Whee-ew! " Some chap going up to Smmyside—got in at Timaru.” My hair and beard grew long and wild—my front teeth passed away, The fresh young guard we started with got old and bent and grey. The palsied fireman chucked it up—the en-gine-driver died. But still we tottered on and stopped to pant at every " side.” “ Christchurch at last! I’m saved, thank Godl!” I cried with trickling tear; Alas, it was ASHBURTON! and I couldn’t get a beer! And when at last we doddered thro' the last yard of the way, I was blindly paralytic from old ago, extreme decay. And ihe girl I came to marry had expired at ninety-two, But her great-grandson met me at that train from Timaru. •