Station to station

In Competition No. 3123 you were invited to submit a poem that begins ‘By Waterloo Station I sat down and …’.
 
Some of you begged, some swore, others slept. But most, in a pleasingly sizable entry, took their lead from weeping Elizabeth Smart. There was a welcome influx of newcomers this week, alongside the familiar names, and the tone ranged from the comic to the poignant.
 
Honourable mentions go to Paul Freeman, Gloria Brown, Ian Barker, Tim Raikes and Alan Millard. The winners below pocket £30 each and include George Simmers’s natty twist on Matthew Arnold’s friend Arthur Hugh Clough’s ‘Dipsychus’ (‘How Pleasant It Is to Have Money…’).
 

By Waterloo Station I sat down and prayed
that the 2.10 to Bruton would not be delayed;
it’s beastly at Eastleigh, it’s tangled at Wool,
and lately at Grateley the toilets are full.
The shambles at Hamble’s a blot on the line,
and folks down at Pokesdown have started to whine;
they’re surly at Earley and grumpy at Fleet,
and from Havant they haven’t a standard-class seat.