The Automobile

FLUID the world flowed under us: the hills

Billow on billow of umbrageous green

Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen

One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills

And silver-rising storms and dewy stills

Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine

Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene

Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills.

Then all of Nature’s old amazement seemed

Sudden to ask us: “Is this also Man?

This plunging, volant, land-amphibian

What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed?

Reply!” And piercing us with ancient scan,

The shrill, primeval hawk gazed down—and screamed.