Poems on Car

When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
ANd the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

by Amy Lowell.

Adam Lindsay Gordon


Wheel me gently to the garage, since my car and I must part--
No more for me the records and the run.
That cursed left-hand cylinder the doctors call my heart
Is pinking past redemption -- I am done!

They'll never strike a mixture that'll help me pull my load.
My gears are stripped--I cannot set my brakes.
I am entered for the finals down the timeless untimed Road
To the Maker of the makers of all makes!

by Rudyard Kipling.

I.
Divine Destroyer, pitty me no more,
Or else more pitty me;
Give me more love, ah, quickly give me more,
Or else more cruelty!
For left thus as I am,
My heart is ice and flame;
And languishing thus, I
Can neither live nor dye!

II.
Your glories are eclipst, and hidden in the grave
Of this indifferency;
And, Caelia, you can neither altars have,
Nor I, a Diety:
They are aspects divine,
That still or smile, or shine,
Or, like th' offended sky,
Frowne death immediately.

by Richard Lovelace.

Love's fiery chariot, Delia, take
Which Vulcan wrought for Venus' sake.
Wings shall not waft thee, but a flame
Hot as my heart--as nobly tame:
Lit by a spark, less bright, more wise
Than linked lightnings of thine eyes!
Seated and ready to be drawn
Come not in muslins, lace or lawn,
But, for thy thrice imperial worth,
Take all the sables of the North,
With frozen diamonds belted on,
To face extreme Euroclydon!
Thus in our thund'ring toy we'll prove
Which is more blind, the Law or Love;
And may the jealous Gods prevent
Our fierce and uncontrouled descent!

by Rudyard Kipling.

The rain's cold grains are silver-gray
Sharp as golden sands,
A bell is clanging, people sway
Hanging by their hands.

Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,
Snatch and catch and grope;
That face is yellow-pale, as if
The fellow swung from rope.

Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,
Glances strike and glare,
Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives
Dangle by the hair.

Orchard of the strangest fruits
Hanging from the skies;
Brothers, yet insensate brutes
Who fear each other's eyes.

One man stands as free men stand,
As if his soul might be
Brave, unbroken; see his hand
Nailed to an oaken tree.

by Elinor Morton Wylie.

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?

by Banjo Paterson.

The ox-team and the automobile
Stood face to face on the long red road,
The long red road was narrow
At the turn of the hill,
And below was the sun-dancing river
Afoam over the rocks.

The mild-mannered beasts stood par, chewing their cud.
The stubble-bearded man from the mountains,
Rustier than his wagon,
Unmoving eyed the proud chauffeur.
The little ragged girl,
With sun-bleached hair,
Sitting on a ahrd, yellow-powdrey bag,
Looked across at the smart motor hats of the ladies,
And their chiffon scarfs
That the light breeze fingered.
The proud chauffeur blew his horn,
But nothing moved-
Except the foaming, sun-dancing river down below.

Then he jerked his head,
And turned the wheel,
And slowly, carefully,
The automobile moved back over the long red road.

And the mild-mannered beasts lifted their feet,
And the stubble-bearded man flipped his rein,
Ad the ragged little girl looked ahead up the hill,
And the ox-team lumbered and limped over the long red road.

by Harriet Monroe.

When our yacht sails seaward on steady keel
And the wind is moist with breath of brine
And our laughter tells of our perfect weal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But if, automobiling, my woes combine
And fuel gives out in my road-machine
And it's sixteen miles to that home of mine--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When our coach rides smoothly on iron-shod wheel
With a deft touch guiding each taut drawn line
And the inn ahead holds a royal meal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, on some long and steep incline,
In a manner entirely unforeseen
The motor stops with a last sad whine--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When the air is crisp and the brooks congeal
And our sleigh glides on with a speed divine
While the gay bells echo with peal on peal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, with perverseness most condign,
In the same harsh snowstorm, cold and keen,
My auto stops at the six-mile sign--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

ENVOY

When yacht or Coach Club fellows dine
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when Automobile Clubmen convene
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!


Submitted by John Martin

by Ellis Parker Butler.

The Lady of the Motor-car she stareth straight ahead;
Her face is like the stone, my friend, her face is like the dead;
Her face is like the stone, my friend, because she is “well-bred”—
Because her heart is dead, my friend, as all her life was dead.
The Lady of the Motor-car she speaketh like a man,
Because her girlhood never was, nor womanhood began.
She says, “To the Aus-traliah, John!” and “Home” when she hath been.
And to the husband at her side she says, “Whhat doo you mean?”

The Lady of the Motor-car her very soul is dead,
Because she never helped herself nor had to work for bread;
The Lady of the Motor-car sits in her sitting-room,
Her stony face has never changed though all the land is gloom.

Her motor-car hath gone to hell—the hell that man hath made;
She sitteth in her sitting-room, and she is not afraid;
Nor fear of life or death, or worse, could change her well-bred mien;
She knits socks in a stony way, and says, “Whhat doo they mean?”

The lady in her carriage sits, with cushions turning green—
And once it was a mourning-coach, and once it held a queen.
Behind a coachman and a horse too old to go to war,
She driveth to her “four o’clocks” and to her sick and poor.

And when the enemy bombards and walls begin to fall,
The Lady of the Motor-car shall stand above you all;
Amongst the strong and silent brave, and those who pray or shriek,
She’ll nurse the wounded from the grave and pacify the weak.

And if the enemy prevails, with death on every side,
The Lady of the Car shall die as heroines have died,
But if the victory remains, she’ll be what she hath been,
And, sitting in her motor-car, shall say: “
Whhat doo you mean?
”

by Henry Lawson.

The motor car is sullen, like a thing that should not be;
The motor car is master of Smart Society.
’Twas born of sweated genius and collared by a clown;
’Twas planned by Retribution to ride its riders down.
And straight for Caesar’s Column,
It runs to Caesar’s Column,
Last section, Caesar’s Column
To ride its riders down!

The motor car is shame-struck, for greed and misery,
For mad and hopeless self-lust, and the sins that need not be.
The motor car is vicious, for its conscience makes it so,
It aye would smash the victims while it runs the riders low.
And straight for Caesar’s Column,
Its goal is Caesar’s Column,
It longs for Caesar’s Column
To lay its riders low.

The motor car is maddened like a horse that’s had a fright,
The shameful day behind it and the Coming of the Night!
It flees across the country and it flees back to the town
And straight for Caesar’s Column to run its riders down.
And straight for Caesar’s Column,
What ho! for Caesar’s Column!
Hurrah! for Caesar’s Column!
To seal its riders down.

The motor car is reckless like a gambler losing fast;
The motor car’s in terror of the Future—and the Past;
The motor car is worn out and has passed Sin’s boundary by,
And is bound for Caesar’s Column where to pile its riders high.
It’s bound for Caesar’s Column
And marked for Caesar’s Column,
And doomed for Caesar’s Column
To pile its riders high.

The motor car is brainless, and scornful of all tears,
Its dust is in our faces, its giggle in our ears,
Its harsh laugh is the last laugh of the last lost soul alone,
’Tis nearing Caesar’s Column to set self-damned in stone.
Change here for Caesar’s Column!
All out for Caesar’s Column!
Past Hope—and Caesar’s Column
To lodge self-damned in stone.

I don’t know how ’twill happen, or when ’twill come to pass,
But folk shall yet pass sanely by river, tree and grass;
By homesteads and farm wagons, they’ll ride each pleasant mile,
And back from Caesar’s Column where the world went mad awhile.
And back from Caesar’s Column
With lessons from the Column;
Grown sane at Caesar’s Column
To save the world awhile.

by Henry Lawson.

O west of all that a man holds dear, on the edge of the Kingdom Come,
Where carriage is far too high for beer, and the pubs keep only rum,
On the sunburnt ways of the Outer Back, on the plains of the darkening scrub,
I have followed the wandering teamster's track, and it always led to a pub.
There's always in man some gift to show, some power he can command,
And mine is the Gift that I always know when a pub is close at hand;
I can pick them out on the London streets, though most of their pubs are queer,
Such solid-looking and swell retreats, with never a sign of beer.

In the march of the boys through Palestine when the noontide fervour glowed,
Over the desert in thirsty line our sunburnt squadrons rode.
They looked at the desert lone and drear, stone ridges and stunted scrub,
And said, "We should have had Ginger here, I bet he'd have found a pub!"

We started out in the noonday heat on a trip that was fast and far,
We took in one each side of the street to balance the blooming car,
But then we started a long dry run on a road we did not know,
In the blinding gleam of the noonday sun, with the dust as white as snow.

For twenty minutes without a drink we strove with our dreadful thirst,
But the chauffeur pointed and said, "I think ----," I answered, "I saw it first!"
A pub with a good old-fashioned air, with bottles behind the blind,
And a golden tint in the barmaid's hair -- I could see it all -- in my mind --

Ere ever the motor ceased its roar, ere ever the chauffeur knew,
I made a dash for the open door, and madly darted through.
I looked for the barmaid, golden-crowned as they were in the good old time,
And -- shades of Hennessy! -- what I found was a wowser selling "lime!"
And the scoundrel said as he stopped to put on his lime-washed boots a rub,
"The Local Option voted it shut, it ain't no longer a pub!"

'Twas then I rose to my greatest heights in dignified retreat
(The greatest men in the world's great fights are those who are great in defeat).
I shall think with pride till the day I die of my confidence sublime,
For I looked the wowser straight in the eye, and asked for a pint of lime.

by Banjo Paterson.

You have heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day.
And then, of a sudden, it up and bust,
And all that was left was a mound of dust?
Holmes -- O. W. -- told it well
In a rhyme of his -- what there was to tell --
But the one-hoss shay wasn't "one, two, three"
With a vehicle once belonged to me.

One hoss? No, sir! Not six nor nine --
Twenty there were in this rig of mine!
Twenty hosses as tough as rocks,
All caged up in a sort of box
That stood jist back of the forward wheels!
Right! She was one of those automobiles
With twenty hosses bottled inside -
Hosses that not only pull but ride!
Wonder what Holmes would have had to say
If the mare had rode in his one-hoss shay!
I reckon the shay would have logicked out
Before the century rolled about.

Well, this big touring car, I say,
Was built just like the one-hoss shay --
Some dependable, logical way --
Flipflaps, dujabs, wheels and things,
Levers, thing-gum-bobs and springs,
Hub, and felloe, and hoss-power chest --
One part just as strong as the rest;
So "logic is logic," as Holmes would say,
And no one part could first give way.

Wonderful vehicle, you'll admit,
With not one flaw in the whole of it;
As long as I had it, I declare
I hadn't one cent to pay for repair,
It couldn't break down because, you see,
It was such a logical symphony.

Now for my tale. We're not so slow
These days as a hundred years ago,
And it's like enough that the one-hoss shay,
Ambling along in its sleepy way,
Should creep a century 'thout a break,
But nowadays we aim to make
A pace that is something like a pace,
And if that old shay got in our race
It would stand the pressure twenty days
And go to the home of played-out shays.

"Logic is logic." Just figure this out --
For I know just what I'm talking about: --
If a one-hoss vehicle, genus shays,
Will stand our pressure twenty days,
Then, vice versa, a twenty-hoss shay
Should stand the pressure just one day; --
Well, mine is a logical automobile,
From rubber tire to steering wheel.
I bought it one morning at just 10.42,
And the very next morning what did it do,
Right on the second, but up and bust!
Talk of the old shay's pile of dust --
That's not logical; my mobile
Vanished completely! Brass and steel,
Iron and wood and rubber tire
Went right up in a gush of fire,
And in half a minute a gassy smell
Was all I had left by which to tell
I ever owned a touring car, --
And then that vanished, and there you are!

End of my twenty hoss-power shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.



Submitted by John Martin

by Ellis Parker Butler.

He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough
Pressed round to hear the praise of one
Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff,
As homespun as their own.

And, when he read, they forward leaned,
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,
His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned
From humble smiles and tears.

Slowly there grew a tender awe,
Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,
As if in him who read they felt and saw
Some presence of the bard.

It was a sight for sin and wrong
And slavish tyranny to see,
A sight to make our faith more pure and strong
In high humanity.

I thought, these men will carry hence
Promptings their former life above,
And something of a finer reverence
For beauty, truth, and love.

God scatters love on every side
Freely among his children all,
And always hearts are lying open wide,
Wherein some grains may fall.

There is no wind but soweth seeds
Of a more true and open life,
Which burst, unlooked for, into high-souled deeds,
With wayside beauty rife.

We find within these souls of ours
Some wild germs of a higher birth,
Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers
Whose fragrance fills the earth.

Within the hearts of all men lie
These promises of wider bliss,
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.

All that hath been majestical
In life or death, since time began,
Is native in the simple heart of all,
The angel heart of man.

And thus, among the untaught poor,
Great deeds and feelings find a home,
That cast in shadow all the golden lore
Of classic Greece and Rome.

O mighty brother-soul of man,
Where'er thou art, in low or high,
Thy skyey arches with exulting span
O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul,
And from the many slowly upward win
To one who grasps the whole:

In his wide brain the feeling deep
That struggled on the many's tongue
Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap
O'er the weak thrones of wrong.

All thought begins in feeling,-wide
In the great mass its base is hid,
And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,
A moveless pyramid.

Nor is he far astray, who deems
That every hope, which rises and grows broad
In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams
From the great heart of God.

God wills, man hopes: in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefined,
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls
A blessing to his kind.

Never did Poesy appear
So full of heaven to me, as when
I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear
To the lives of coarsest men.

It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century;-

But better far it is to speak
One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men;

To write some earnest verse or line,
Which, seeking not the praise of art,
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine
In the untutored heart.

He who doth this, in verse or prose,
May be forgotten in his day,
But surely shall be crowned at last with those
Who live and speak for aye.

by James Russell Lowell.

I

WAYNE was looking near and far
After the theatre to find his car.
He had taken his wife to the play that night;

Broadway was glittering hard and bright
With every sort of electric light­
Green and scarlet and diamond-white;
And moving letters against the sky
Told you exactly the reason why
This or that was the thing to buy.
And suddenly there at his side was Nell
Vainly seeking her car as well
They talked. for a moment... of meeting again...
And how were Edward and Ruth, and then
'I wonder,' said Nell, 'if you ever see
My lovely friend...' 'You mean,' said he,
'That blue-eyed lady I once sat next.. '
'Exactly,' said Nellie. 'I feel so vexed
With Lee. I haven't seen her this season,
And between you and me, I know the reason.'
'Do you indeed? ' said Wayne.'Oh, yes,'
Nell answered. 'I know... at least I guess.
When a woman like that whom I've seen so much
All of a sudden drops out of touch,
Is always busy and never can
Spare you a moment, it means a MAN.'

Wayne did not smile. 'I am sure you are
Right,' he said. 'Do you go so far
In the magic art as to tell us who
The man may be? ' 'I certainly do,'
Said Nell. 'It's that handsome young romantic
Doctor who's driving the ladies frantic,
So that they flock to be cured in shoals
And talk of nothing but sex and souls,
And self-expression, and physical passion..
Of course, no wonder the man's the fashion.'

'Does Mrs. Kent flock? ' 'Oh, no, I meant
They've called him in to take care of Kent.
Imagine the long deep conversations,
The tears, the intimate revelations...
I wish to all ladies, lonely and sad,
Tied to a husband hopelessly mad
A handsome psychiatrist... good or bad.
Oh, there's my car,' and so with a gay
Good night to Wayne she was driven away.

People will come for miles, they say,
To see a man burnt at the stake, yet none
Turned in that crowd to look at one
Standing quietly burning there,
Suffering more than a man can bear,
Consumed with hideous inner fire,
Believing his love a cheat and a liar...
Believing the moment that Nell had spoken,
For that day of all days Lee had broken
A date... at the time he had thought it queer,
And now, by God, it was perfectly clear,
Perfectly clear, no doubt whatever...
A doctor, handsome and young and clever,
With all this rotten erotic learning....

Strange indeed that no head was turning
To watch this gentleman quietly burning,
In a trance of pain he heard Ruth say:
'Well, dear, what did you think of that play? '

II

'HOW could you think such a thing? '
'Try to forgive if you can.'
'Spoiling our beautiful Spring! '
'Well, I am only a man.'

'I will forgive, if I can.'
'Jealousy made me insane.'
'I never spoke to the man.'
'I'll never doubt you again.'

'Jealousy made you insane.'
'Lee, you have much to forgive.'
'Oh, never doubt me again.'
'Never as long as I live.'

'Jim, I have much to forgive.'
'Yes, but I've suffered like hell.'
'Trust me as long as you live.'
'Dearest, I love you too well.'

'Poor darling, going through hell.'
'Spoiling our beautiful Spring.'
'I also love you too well.'
'How could I think such a thing? '

III

LOVERS after a quarrel say to each other lightly:
'Dear, we are closer than ever: I love you better by far;
After the rainstorm is over, the sun shines even more brightly...'
Poor pitiful lovers, trying to hide the unsightly
Stain on the surface of love... the ineffaceable scar.

IV

THE Spring was over, and Summer far advanced,­
Lee spent many a hidden week in town,
Days long and enchanted, and nights entranced,
But one thought would not down:

'Is he content with this snatched and broken life? '
She thought, 'when we might be free?
He cannot love that dowdy middle-aged wife.
Does he really love me? '

She was not burnt by jealousy sudden and hot,
But poisoned and chilled that he would not break
A meagre tie to a wife she knew he could not
Love, - yet would not forsake.

One night at her window, looking over the Park,
With his strong hand on her shoulder prest,
And a thunder-cloud rolling up out of the dark,
Rolling out of the West,

Suddenly she heard herself quoting Macbeth:
' 'To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.' '
He answered after a pause on a long-drawn breath:
'Safety is not for us.'

V
AND from that moment Lee began - not nagging,
She was too wise for that - but she began
A secret steady pull, a silent dragging
To break the other tie that bound this man.

And she would brood, injured, remote, self-centred
At any mention that he had a wife;
And something chill and faintly hostile entered
The magic circle of this hidden life.

O lovers, those legitimately united
In holy wedlock, and less happy, those
Whose troth may never openly be plighted­
(Less happy did I say? Alas, who knows?)

But lovers all, beware, and know the strongest
Of wills may make a strong antagonist:
And that love will not always linger longest
With those who hold it in too clenched a fist.

VI

YET on the whole they were happy, as day by day
The long mysterious Summer passed away.
None guessed their secret - except far off on a shady
Lawn by the coast of Maine, a middle-aged lady
Spending a quiet Summer almost alone
In a great Victorian house of dark gray stone,
Knew as she sat and stared at the cold Maine ocean
Every event, every phase, every emotion
Of that great romance. She knew, none better,
Not by a chance or slip, or anonymous letter,
Not through gossip by any tattler carried,
But because she perfectly knew the man she had married.

VII

'DO not go home for Sunday,
Darling,' Lee's letter said.
'How I hate Friday to Monday!
Stay with me here, instead.
Life is so short, and one day
Soon, we shall both be dead.

'The curse of love like ours
Is that we seem to be
Always cut short by powers
Stronger than you and me.
But if you stayed-what hours,
Glorious, alone and free'

VIII

RUTH in her quiet garden beside the sea
Thinking, 'To-morrow at this time Jim will be
Here at my side. It's something to be a wife -
The background dull and assured of everyday life.
He must come home, whether he wants to or not,
To me, to me... All other women must plot,
Arrange, manoeuver to see him...'

And then behind her
She heard the steps of a servant coming to find her:
A footman stood with a telegram held on a tray:
'Terribly sorry I cannot get away
This week-end. Better luck next. Love. Jim.'

She turned her head to the footman, and said to him,
'Say Mr. Wayne will not be here to-morrow.'
And the man withdrew and left her alone with her sorrow.

The sun went down behind the great blue hill;
And she sat there alone in her garden, perfectly still,
Watching the wraiths of fog blow in like smoke,
And her heart as she sat there gently and quietly broke.

IX

AN August Sunday in town,
The Park all sere and brown,
The noise of wheels died down.

Faint tepid breezes wake
Now and again, and make
Lee's slatted curtains shake.

Now and again in the street
The sound of passing feet,
And church bells, faint and sweet.

Faint bells that ought to mean
A village spire seen
Across a meadow green.

Faint bells... Wayne's early youth....
Going to church... in truth
Going to church with Ruth.

Faint bells, and Lee cries, 'Oh,
How I should like to know
Why bells depress me so! '

X

BEFORE the skulls of Primitive Man,
Lee stood and thought: 'Are we part of a plan
Of Nature's; or are we just a sort
Of Cosmic Coincidence - a sport
Of God - or worse, a sport of chance­
Or of Ether - Nature's great romance?

'How queer it would be, if it turned out we
Were merely eddies - Jim and me
Meaningless eddies in ether swirled
In and out of a meaningless world.
Well, if we are it's nice to think
We've had some moments upon the brink
Of dissolution - of absolute chaos
Moments of joy that well repay us.'

And she paused to note that her fellow eddy
Was fifteen minutes late already.

Waiting she wandered from floor to floor,
Every instant becoming more
Uneasy, and going back to the door,
Where Wayne ought to have been at exactly four.

She went from the skulls of Primitive Man
To the mystic temples of Yucatan,
Or studied gray elephants, vast and haughty,
But with eyes like pigs' eyes, shrewd and naughty,
Flamingoes of beautiful coral pink­
The ancestry of the missing link­
But in between she was always hurrying
Back to the doorway, wondering, worrying -
And then she saw with a horrid sinking
Of heart, it was five! And she went home thinking,
'Something has happened - he's been struck
By a ruthless, rollicking, rumbling truck,
Or crushed by a taxi, and now is lying
In some hospital ward - unknown and dying -
Or if they knew would they send in truth
For me? Oh, no, they would send for Ruth.'

And hurrying fast as the laws enable,
She found a telegram on her table,
Signed as usual, 'J. H. Wayne:'

'Ruth has pneumonia alone in Maine,
Of course I am taking the very first train.
Sorry to miss you before I go.
When I know my plans, I'll let you know.'

The first emotion felt by Lee
Was pure and perfect relief that he
Was safe. And then she felt the force
Of that cruel, domestic calm 'of course.'
And then undeniably into her head
Came the thought unbidden: - 'If Ruth were dead - '
And standing alone: 'Poor thing,' she said

by Alice Duer Miller.