Oft, when I feel my engine swerve,
As o'er strange rails we fare,
I strain my eyes around the curve
For what awaits us there.
When swift and free she carries me
Through yards unknown at night,
I look along the line to see
That all the lamps are white

The blue light marks the crippled car,
The green light signals slow;
The red light is a danger light,
The white light, "Let her go."
Again the open fields we roam,
And, when the night is fair,
I look up in the starry dome
And wonder what's up there.

For who can speak for those who dwell
Behind the curving sky?
No man has ever lived to tell
Just what it means to die.
Swift toward life's terminal I trend,
The run seems short to-night;
God only knows what's at the end --
I hope the lamps are white.
 

Across the hill and down the dell,
Past station after station;
The muffled music of the bell
Gives voice to each vibration.

Out o'er the prairie, cold and gray,
There falls a flood of fire,
While orders flash for  miles away:
"Take siding for the flyer."

The engine seems to fairly float,
Her iron sinew quiver,
While swift, beneath her throbbing throat,
The rails rush like a river.

Upon the seat the engineer,
Who knows her speed and power,
Sits silently without a fear
At sixty miles an hour.

Clickety click! as out of town
The engine picks her way;
Where barefoot children, sunburnt brown,
In dusty alleys play.
All the summer, early and late,
And in the summer drear,
A maiden stands at the orchard gate,
And waves at the engineer.

He likes to look at her face so fair,
And her homely country dress;
She like to look at the man up there
At the fron of the fast express.
Clickety click! though miles apart,
To her he is always near,
And she feels the click of her happy heart
For the heart of the engineer.

Over the river and down the dell,
Beside the running stream,
She hears the clang of the engine-bell --
The whistle's startled scream.
Clickety click! An open switch --
Onward the engine flies.
Clickety click! They're in the ditch!
Oh, angels! hide her eyes!

Clickety click, and down the track
The train will dash today;
But what of the ribbons of white and black
The engine wears away;
Clickety click! Oh, worlds apart --
The maiden hangs her head.
There is no click in the maiden's heart --
The engineer is dead.

When your feet have strayed from the everglade
To the shore of a shipless sea,
When the bar you've crossed, and at length you're lost
In its hushed immensity;
When you search the wild, with a silence piled
Waist deep, for the desert trail,
There's a distant roar like a sea ashore,
That's the moan of the desert mail.

Through the racing years there the engineers
Sit close to the cabin pane,
While they urge their steeds where the white trail leads
Through the land of Little Rain;
Then out behind, on the desert wind,
Blown back like a bridal veil,
Far, dim and gray like the milky way,
Floats the dust of the desert mail.

When the gaunt wolves howl where the spirits prowl --
The ghosts of the desert's dead,
And the living, lost, where their trails have crossed
Mill 'round, while the sun paints red
The western skies, as the long day dies
And the stars shine dim and pale;
There's a beacon fair on the desert there --
That's the light of the desert mail.