  O the trucks that leave Southampton bring a smell of twine and tar, And fishy like the asphalt ways that front the glittering bar, And they steam into the station where the laurel bushes are; And the trucks be wet and slippery as sea-weed on the rocks With their cumbrous coils of cordage from the ships beside the docks, And they creak along the platform like the clank of ogres’ locks. What send we to Southampton for our upland valley’s freight? Comes a band of armoured milk-cans through the level-crossing’s gate And cabbages with leaves a-curl and sprouting through the crate. And ducklings in a wicker coop and gilly-flowers to fall, Dusty-petalled in a bucket under some Southampton stall, And sons who sail for ’Meriky and bid good-bye to all. Then it’s “Forward for Southampton!” They are gone and we turn back, Past the river and the orchard and the warm dishevelled stack, And again the silent barriers are swung across the track; Again the platform is at peace, the idle metals shine, And the tendrils are untroubled on the station-master’s vine, And the sun is on the laurels and the sparrows on the line. |
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