The 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?