To a poetess on the 1812 Newbury Train

What did they mean, those eyes of hers?
Deep, wistful, wise beyond her years.
There were quiet tears there, amid the yell
And jangle of the mobile phones;
But cast away that spell of melancholy,
Serenely far away she was
In thoughtful, chaste and honest reverie.
She had 'Station Island' on her lap,
And was writing in it. Notes? Or her own verse?
Her answer to the good Lord’s wild
Challenge to feeble frame and crumbling bones?

I said it, briefly, when I reached my stop,
‘I too love Heaney’ - and she smiled.

Young Lady, with that gracious glance
You claimed at once
A traveller's ancient heart;
And, could you but see,
You there became a Muse to me.