Now twenty, eight, and eighty-two!
Hearken, the muffled bell!
As the engine strains and the frozen train
Climbs on, through a snow-cold hell!
They're calling on the passengers
To help relieve the stoker
To shovel in yet one more head
And stir the flames with a poker.
The grade runs steep, the night is deep,
The air is dark and freezing,
And a stone cold ghost lingers with each post,
And the boiler's weak, and wheezing.
The track is white with fallen snow,
And snow-gales make them blind.
But still she climbs, and coughs, and strains,
Climbing on towards twenty, nine.