Abominable work of man,

Defacing nature where he can

With engineering;

On plain or hill he never fails

To run his execrable rails;

Coals, dirt, smoke, passengers and mails,

At once appearing.

To Alpine summits daily go

The locomotives to and fro.

What desecration!

Where playful kids once blithely skipped,

Where rustic goatherds gaily tripped,

Where clumsy climbers sometimes slipped,

He builds a station.

Up there, where once upon a time

Determined mountaineers would climb

To some far chÂlet;

Up there, above the carved wood toys,

Above the beggars, and the boys

Who play the Ranz des Vaches—such noise

Down in the Thal, eh?

Up there at sunset, rosy red,

And sunrise—if you're out of bed—

You see the summit,

Majestic, high above the vale.

It is not difficult to scale—

The fattest folk can go by rail

To overcome it.

For nothing, one may often hear,

Is sacred to the engineer;

He's much too clever.

Well, I must hurry on again,

That mountain summit to attain.

Good-bye. I'm going by the train.

I climb it? Never!