  BY MARION DRACE IT’S raining out again tonight, A dismal, pelting rain, That drives against my window With a dripping, and again With a rattling stormy fury, Sheets of water, waves of gray, Made gruesome by the thunder And the lightning’s livid play. It brings to me the gloom of life, An odd, most welcome pain, And once again the whistle of the old 10.30 train. With all this storm without, and me So silent here alone, With all the distant past in view, Its evil to atone; With chin on hand, I wonder how I’d feel if I could be A boy again, with mother near Me praying at her knee. How all the cares of life would fade, If I could hear again From out my cot the whistle of the old 10.30 train. I hear it far departing This gloomy night and me, A-joying in the dying wail From which it seems to flee. The long, low cry is wafted back Through night and rain and wind, A cry that seems congenial like Another soul that’s sinned. It makes me long for home and for My cot, so cleanly plain, To doze just with the whistle of that old 10.30 train. Ah, life is not of solitude, Nor childhood joys alone, Its mirth not all departed, though We reap the evil sown. But nights of rain and solitude Bring back the happy past— The freight that came so regular My eyes to close at last. From all the now I quick would flee— It seems so full of pain— If I could sleep forever with that whistle’s wail again! |
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