The Railway Ballad

The train starts moving quietly,
So little time remains to bide...
The bitter hardships faced by me
Are things I still would rather hide.
 
The miles are flashing past the glass;
 write, then tear my lines in two...
Your portrait watched the moments pass,
Hung on my cabin wall in view.
 
The train rushed onward through the storm,
And framed within the window glass
My native land revealed its form;
I watched the fleeting visions pass.

Unbidden tears obscured my sight,
Yet you are not to blame, I know;
For I was blinded by the white
Of birches, pure as fallen snow.

A winding brook, the maples glow —
A beauty words cannot translate.
My sweet green-eyed Al-yoh-na, though,
I fear you’ve grown too tired to wait.

And we will talk of this at home,
The quiet sorrow left behind,
The lights that spilled from the aerodrome,
And endless rails etched in the mind.
 
But now the train moves quietly,
So little time remains to bide...
The bitter hardships faced by me
Are things I still would rather hide.