[Sharpthorne Hill][1st October 1972]

[Redbook1:263A-B][19721001:0000][Sharpthorne Hill][1st October 1972]

(19721001 - Copy(III))

Sharpthorne Hill

What we have lost

Cannot be accounted;

What we have gained,

We have lost.

Once I stood on Sharpthorne Hill,

Gazed across the Weald;

Saw how Men imposed their will:

Farm and factory, house and mill,

Road and wood and field.

Where the infant Medway flowed

Through a tree-lined alley,

Through the fields neatly sowed,

There a thread of steel rode

Clear across the valley!

Listen

To the humming of the rail!

Now I know we cannot fail.

See, away, the trees are smoking –

Clouds are curling up the valley;

And the steel rail is thrumming

Through a deep vibration.

Far across the valley

Drifts a clear call.

And the miracle, man’s making,

Passes snake-like through the woodlands –

Man and machine –

Thunders, clatters through the station,

And disappears.

Sound dies;

Smoke drifts, and dissolves.

Now all is gone;

And trees grow

Where trains thundered.

So passes Civilisation,

And all we value turns to dust.

Dust!  But maybe a new awakening,

Forced on us by greed –

By our people’s great consumption –

By our growing need –

Will rebuild our railways

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