_We_ should have to attend on the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his big broad bed,
And piled the brown earth o'er his funnel,
How his foe o'er the Great-Western metals would tread,
Shrieking triumph through cutting and tunnel.

Lightly they'll talk of him now he is gone,
For the cheap "Narrow Gauge" has outstayed him,
Yet BULL _might_ have found, had he let it go on,
That BRUNEL's Big Idea would have paid him!

But the battle is ended, our task is done;
After forty years' fight he's retiring.[1]
This hour sees thy triumph, O STEPHENSON;
Old "Broad Gauge" no more will need firing.

The "Dutchman" must now be "divided in two"!--
Well, well, they shan't mangle or mess _you_!
Accept the last words of friends faithful, if few:--
"Good-bye, poor old Broad-Gauge, God bless you!"[2]

Slowly and sadly we laid him down.
He has filled a great chapter in story.
We sang not a dirge--we raised not a stone,
But we left the "Broad Gauge" to his glory!

[Footnote 1: The Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the
uniformity of railway gauges, presented their report to Parliament
on May 30, 1846.]