Saltbush Bill, J. P.

Lay of the Motor-Car

  We're away! and the wind whistles shrewd
   In our whiskers and teeth;
  And the granite-like grey of the road
   Seems to slide underneath.
  As an eagle might sweep through the sky,
   So we sweep through the land;
  And the pallid pedestrians fly
   When they hear us at hand.

  We outpace, we outlast, we outstrip!
   Not the fast-fleeing hare,
  Nor the racehorses under the whip,
   Nor the birds of the air
  Can compete with our swiftness sublime,
   Our ease and our grace.
  We annihilate chickens and time
   And policemen and space.

  Do you mind that fat grocer who crossed?
   How he dropped down to pray
  In the road when he saw he was lost;
   How he melted away
  Underneath, and there rang through the fog
   His earsplitting squeal
  As he went——  Is that he or a dog,
   That stuff on the wheel?