O, the sweet fine beauty of the long-lined car!
THE SPIRIT OF TRANSPORTATION Roy George, 1922 I Time, and the Wheel, and the Infinite Sphere, What is the problem the gods have set? How shall man master it, now and here? Conquering Time and Space—and yet Holding dominion Over his mind; Riding the wind On steel pinion While keeping his eye fixed hard on the earth, His by promise, and right, and birth? FOR, RISE AS THEY MAY, AND, WHATEVER THE ODDS, MEN ARE BUT MEN, AND THE GODS ARE THE GODS. This is the problem: To lift, By the gift Of his vision, His weight from the earth In the face of divine derision; And to fix, as with pinion and gears, All he wrests from the gods through the years; Building him up a machine, Against infinite odds, To annihilate Time, dwarf the Sphere, Turn the Wheel of the gods, And so steer His own fortune. That's all the years mean. What's it worth? WELL, MAN STARTED BY HITCHING HIS DOG ON A TETHER; NOW, HIS MOTOR SPINS BY AND THEY...