I served my time, in the days gone by,
In the railway's clash and clang,
And I worked my way to the end, and I
Was the head of the 'Flying Gang'.
'Twas a chosen band that was kept at hand
In case of an urgent need,
Was it south or north we were started forth
And away at our utmost speed.
If word reached town that a bridge was down,
The imperious summons rang —
'Come out with the pilot engine sharp,
And away with the flying gang.'

Then a piercing scream and a rush of steam
As the engine moved ahead,
With a measured beat by the slum and street
Of the busy town we fled,
By the uplands bright and the homesteads white,
With the rush of the western gale,
And the pilot swayed with the pace we made
As she rocked on the ringing rail.
And the country children clapped their hands
As the engine's echoes rang,
But their elders said, 'There is work ahead
When they send for the flying gang.'

Then across the miles of the saltbush plain
That gleamed with the morning dew,
Where the grasses waved like the ripening grain
The pilot engine flew,
A fiery rush in the open bush
Where the grade marks seemed to fly,
And the order sped on the wires ahead,
The pilot must go by.
The Governor's special must stand aside,
And the fast express go hang,
Let your orders be that the line is free
For the boys of the flying gang.

In a lonely spot that was filled with leaves,
And the wild waste plants without scent or name,
Where never a mourner came,—
That was far from the ground where the false world grieves,
And far from the shade of the church’s eaves—
They buried the Poet with thoughts of shame,
And not as one who believes.

Then the tall grass flower with lolling head,
Who is king of all flowers that twine or creep
On graves where few come to weep,
To the briar, and bindweed, and vetch, he said,
"Lo, here is a grave of the lonely dead;
Let us go up and haste while his soul may sleep,
To make the fresh earth our bed."

Then the rootless briar and bindweed mean,
And the grovelling vetch, with the pale trefoil
That cumbers the fruitless soil,
Yea, the whole strange rout of the earth’s unclean
Went up to the grave that was fresh and green;
And together they wrought there so dense a coil
The grave was no longer seen.

But the tall mad flower whose head is crowned
With the long lax petals that fall and flap
Like the ears of a fool’s bell-cap,
He stood higher than all on the fameless mound;
And nodded his head to each passing sound,
Darting this way and that, as in sport to trap
Each laugh of the winds around.