The Automobile

By Percy MacKaye

1875-1956


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.

DayPoems Poem No. 1123
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1123.html">The Automobile by Percy MacKaye</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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