You Thaw your Freezeless Circulation first; Then mend your Puncture Proof Tire where it Burst. Helpless you Skid upon your Anti-Skids,áiyá But Starting a Self-Starter is the Worst!
Perhaps you get out your Repairing-Kit, And try to Regulate the Thing a bit; You test the Coil, adjust the Shifting-Gear,— And then it Goes? Not so you’d Notice it!
And that Inverted Man, who seems to lie Upon the Ground, and Squints with Practis’d Eye. Lift not your Hands to him for Help. For he As impotently works as you or I.
Ah, Love, could You and I with him conspire To Fix this Sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would we not take it all apart, and then Remodel with no danger of Back-Fire?
Ah, make the most of Time we yet may spend Before we too, into the Dust descend; Dust unto Dust. Under the Car to lie, Sans Coat, sans Breath, sans Temper, and—sans Friend!
And that Reviving Herb, whose Tender Green Upon the Julep Cup is sometimes seen, Ah, interview it lightly, for you know You’ll need your Wits to manage your Machine.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Lamps that shed A steady Searchlight on our Path ahead; To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday’s Seven Thousand Dead.
Why, if your Car can fling the Dust aside, And flying, through the Air of Heaven ride, Were’t not a Shame, were’t not a Shame, I say, Within Speed Limit, tamely to abide?
What! Without asking, stop our Speed immense? And, without asking, Jailward hurried hence! Oh, many a Cop of this Forbidding Mien, Must rue the Memory of his Insolence!
And fear not lest a Smashup closing My Account and Yours, Machines no more shall fly; The Eternal Motorist has ever bought Millions of Bubbles like ours, and will buy.
I sometimes think that every Shining Star Is but the Tail Lamp of a Motor Car; Which leap’d from Earth in its mad Ecstasy, And into Space went Speeding Fast and Far.
And this I know. Though in a Magazine Perfectly-running Motor Cars I’ve seen, It’s quite a Different Proposition when They’re on the Road, and filled With Gasolene!
The Moving Motor speeds, and having Sped, Moves on. Nor all the Cries and Shrieks of Dread Shall lure it back to settle Damage Claims; Not even if the Victims are Half Dead!
And when at Last you’ve mastered Belts and Bolts, When with no fear of Side-Slips, Jars or Jolts, Your Sixty H. P. Racer licks up Miles At Lightning Speed,—turn on a few more Volts!