Classic Poem

I'm not standing on the platform for the gaping fools to see:
Every train that comes to Mudgee is an empty train to me.
Ah! me boy was quite contented to stay West and settle down,
Till the damned Pro-gress Committee brought the railway to the town.

I am sitting by the river, listening to the sad old song,
Where a sigh seems floating ever down the willowed Cudgegong.
O I hate the cruel cuttings an' embankments round Mount Frome,
For they took me sweetheart from me and they took me heart from home.

For he went by rail to Sydney, an' he ne'er come back again;
An' he left, where my poor heart was, just a dull an' endless pain.
O his arm was firm around me, an' his eyes were truest brown —
An' I curse the day when progress brought the railway to the town.

On the old coach road to Sydney there's a mile-tree by the track,
With a green branch pointing forward an' a dead branch pointing back;
An' the granite peaks behind it seem to wait in vain and frown —
They were grand before misfortune brought the rail to Mudgee town!

I was fresher in me girlhood — yes! an' greener than the bough,
But me hands an' heart are withered, an' me life's the dead branch now.
Ah! I wonder does he flourish? Does his path lie up or down?
Does he curse the day whin fortune brought the rail to Mudgee town?

Ah! I used to know in those days that a woman's heart could ache,
But I niver b'lieved the rubbish that woman's heart could break.
Ah, but my heart was a girl's heart, an' a lovin' heart at worst,
An' a true heart to a devil! — an' I know that that can burst!