So It Befell / Eda Lou Walton

So It Befell

When the day is long
And full of pain,
I remember
A certain little lane
Where every night,
At half-past seven,
The train flashed by
On its way to heaven.

There you and I,
Watching in the lane,
Dreamed of riding
Inside the train —
Away from the wide
Sun-flowered plain
And tall fields of
High rolling grain.

When night is long
And strangely sane,
I remember
A certain little lane,
Where, on one night —
So it befell —
The train passed heaven
On its way to hell.

~~
Eda Lou Walton (1894-1961)
from Poetry, August 1921

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Eda Lou Walton biography