Old Seth had been an engineman

worked on the Chesapeake

from Richmond to Ohio

and back two times a week

 

then lately in a twilight home

in Wannesboro it seems

just keeping to himself most times

and living on his dreams.

 

The doctors reckoned he'd lost his mind

just sat there looking out;

some days his eyes would screw right up

other times he'd shout

 

but mostly he just cursed and spat

and very seldom smiled.

No one knew his reasoning

nor why he got so riled.

 

Apparently one restless night

he trashed his room and went,

packed his clothes for the winter snows

at the time of a wolves' lament.

 

No trace of Seth was found for a while,

but on a frosty morning

a hunter was out at Shenandoah

just as the sun was dawning.

 

He lined his sights on a vulture venue

wheeling and circling round

where a tunnel went through a rocky pass

as they hovered near the ground.

 

The rifleman was curious

so he climbed a bit aways

then a timber trestle bridge came clear

in the morning's early haze.

 

With no particular press of time

he scrambled up the side

to where the trackbed stretched right out

in weeds and rust ran wide.

 

There a lofty signal post

was bleaching in the air

and on the ground was a man propped up

facing Delaware.

 

The state police soon checked him out

Seth's face had nearly gone,

those vultures don't have no respect

for what they feast upon.

 

The engineman had finished up

just riding out his past

when his loco pressure went right up

with water in the glass.

 

The twilight home went into shock

but soon his room was taken,

'cause life and death go on I guess

and the dead you can't awaken.

 

No one knows what drove him there

and why that spur was closed

with the old men gone

 

but dreams pass on

to the young and unopposed.