See yon abandoned chimney stack
Majestic, square and solemn
Beside the rusted railway track

Its monumental column

Subdued by none in airy height
With lofty gaze around

Its aching feet in humble plight
Firm fastened to the ground

 

Its wide horizon stretches there
In broad expansive view

Beneath its gaze with molten flare
The slagging slowly grew

Then up Dundyvan's winding road
To Whifflet's Rosehall crest

And down to Monklands' last abode
Where now, past voices rest

 

The fiery blast at Summerlee

The flames of Carnbroe
Gartsherrie's carnal beams we see
As pigs of iron flow

The belching steam and hammers loud
Where men face heat and haze

We see again the glowing cloud

The night's red sky ablaze

 

Where Greeting Sally wailed her sound
At nine each Monday morn

And wee alarms are mostly wound
To match the British horn

In rumbling train each waggon goes
Mong puffing clouds of steam
While thro it all, still gently flows
The Luggies ruined stream

 

Then Slap Up closes had their day
And moonlight flits at night

The pubs and pawns in close array
And many a challenge fight

Big monster polismen were seen
To quell the different clans

Lord help us if we got between
The Billies and the Dans

 

Then Johnny Cullen's single bills
Bob Fannan's yams to spin

Sir George McCallum's choral trill
And Jimmy The Reel's wee tin

A splash in our canal one day

A man slipped off the path

It's only Cola Dan they say

It's just his annual bath

 

The Pie shop down Dundyvan stood
The Mecca of the dance

Where young ones in romantic mood
Were wont to birl and prance

The polis always at the door

The wains keek thro a seam

The bouncing floor complaining sore
The place all smoke and steam

 

We watched the BBs picture screen
And puffed our wee Woodbine

Our World was then the Fiddler's green
The lochs and puggy line

On New Year's Day a big steak pie
The Band marched down the street
We still recall those days gone by
When old time pals we meet

 

By fate's decree our Langloan Lum
Made now the tale to tell

As stem command the end had come
In rumbling blast it fell

No more to stand subdued by none
And gently scan the town

No more supreme in setting sun
Times had brought it down

©Douglas Longmuir