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'RE SITTING TOGETHER.

II

Is that all?

That a man may whirl by

With his dog?

Or fly

To the sun through the fog?

Or may cable inanities,

Footless humanities,

Under the seas,

Or by wire?

Or, yet higher and higher, may flash through the air

His poor empty laughter—sad lees of the wine

Of divine joy! O, boy of mine, box your radio set!

Hark, the bird's song that shames our endeavor Forever.

And yet .... hope that builds on despair ....

YOUR WELL-FED CITIZEN OF ANY COUNTRY TOWN

TURNS OFF HIS MAZDA WITH A BOASTFUL ZIP

GOD'S IMAGE!

AH! BUT SEE A LINCOLN FROWN

PONDERING GOD'S JUSTICE WITH A TALLOW DIP!

Speed is not all.

Before the nations fall,

High on some hill, against a quiet sky,

Top-point of all our human building,

The Arc of Truth will stand.

Then some last soul, swift upward fanned,

(To what celestial plane?)

Contemptuous, will knock the gilding

From our temple's gawdy fane.

Speed is not all.

Before the nations fall,

Far in some quiet land,

A race, not forging bonds to bind sad duty,

Quick will thrill,

Less at their monstrous engines hurtling by,

More in the simple love of simple Beauty.

Thus living, is to emulate the gods.

Yet, speed is Beauty—of a kind ;

The present rage

Is but the contribution of an age,

Not blind,

But gaining lap on lap while Chronos nods

SPEED IS NOT BEAUTY—NOT PER SE-—BUT MARK

THE GAIN ON TIME, BEFORE YOU CURSE THE MOTOR CYCLE'S SPARK.

III

And, O, the sweet fine beauty of the long-lined car!

The sweet soft glist'ning feline grace as she slips past!

Swift as a bird, brave as a ship! How far

She draws our wonder, and she comes—how fast!

The joy, the grace,

The wonder of the pace,

The thunder everyplace,

And the race of our nerves!

The trucks and the stages,

The wonder of the ages,

On the curves, in the square,

The tumult on the air, everywhere!

Then the strong pull—away! and the shifting gears,

The long pull up, up, up to the city's rim,

The dip, and the flight, as the swallows skim,

And the thoughts of home, and the sounds of night,

And the motor's purr in the evening light,

The swinging stars, and the scattering hills,

The urge of the engine's forty wills,

Brave for the burden of every load,

On to the end of the longest road;

Home ! We have conquered something here;

Or, away! The motor is off like a deer.

This is no toy, or thing of chance;

This is a stage in the big advance.

IV

MARK THE STEADY POWER AS THEY SCALE THE FALLS,

A LIN OF TRUCKS ALONG THE CAÑON WALLS!

Foot of the elephant, the camel's hide,

The horse's heart, the burro's nerves:

The ancient pack train, vastly glorified,

Served in one truck, that every purpose serves.

Sweep all the rest away

As but tokens of glory;

Pack the needs of today

On the truck and the lorry.

You question? We stand to take issue at last:

We will move to the future with this from the past.

Leviathan!

Who then hath drawn him from the sea?

Or who hath tamed him, if not we?

His fearful neezings have been drawn like fangs,

His trail of fire, and his nostril's smoke.

On the iron rail, at his highest speed,

The will of man he has learned to heed;

And now the monster climbs and hangs

On the edge of a cliff, or plunges

With a few good-natured grunts and lunges

Into a sandwash and out again,

Over the roads to the haunts of men;

Lumbering by, like a clumsy colt,

Strong, and willing, and thoroly broke,

Swift to serve, and slow to bolt.

THIS IS THE CONQUEROR OF TIME, THIS FORCE,

THIS FINE BIG FRIENDLY HONEST HORSE.

The ancients built the pyramids,

And did they master Time?

There is a proud, sublime defiance in their pile;

The Sphinx with veiled lids

Scoffs at Time's endeavor, and, as if forever,

Scoffs; and wears a smile;

And has, from history's dawn.

Time moves, relentless, on!

Space, and Time, and the Steering Gears,

The Wheel of the gods' machine;

To grasp the Wheel and pass the Years,

And compass Space from this Vale of Tears—

That is the problem; and something yet

Here is the problem the gods have set—

To establish Justice on the earth,

To claim the right to Beauty, ours by birth.

V

How then can we go lumb'ring in a truck

To glory?

Or, wheeling in a plane, not run amuck

Among the planets hoary?

The truck that carries the material food

Of all the world

Whirl'd in a day from land to land,

Has already spanned the hour

From past to future time, with an untold treasure,

And brought a dower

Of leisure

Thus Time is mastered, and no other way.

So, too, Space will be bridged by thought,

Flashed, it may be to Mars,

And relayed to the furthest stars:

Let it be a true thought, lived in our lives, well.

Otherwise, an Old Wives' Tale,

Of some ailment or some swelling

Would be as well worth telling.

Lo! the thing

That I sing

Is not this, seen across the Abyss;

Not the beast, nor the load, nor the spur, nor

the goad,

But the House at the End of the Road.

VI

Hold the thought,

Dearly bought,

That the Chief End of Man is not glory, but Justice;

God's Justice on earth will give birth to new visions of Beauty.

The mirage

Of our day holds the well where our daughters will draw.

That's the law

Of the Spirit. We build the far dream,

And the thought may be snared by a faraway star :

But it must be dared here, where we are.

So the dream of the elephant rider was caught

And we've built his mirage

A garage

At the back of the lot.

WITH THE LITTLE GREY MOUSE TO CARRY HIS LOAD,

MAN SEEKS FOR THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE ROAD.

See the pack

On the pachyderm's back:

Just a bale and a jar,

And you see what they are—

Not a carpet of magic,

The tragic,

Brief span of a life with its lesson;

Best learn it—

And the little rag rug of God's mercy,

Dare spurn it—

But dream, dream and build, till the plan of man's Justice

Is flashed

Unabashed

In the face of the gods

And the God of all gods

Laughs with joy that his plan is fulfilled.

NOT TIME NOR SPACE CONTAINS THE FINAL GOAL

BUT SOMETHING WRESTED FROM THE GODS TO FEED THE SOUL.

VII

Remains the wheel. What is it? Where?

It turns,

And worldly fortunes rise and fall,

The sea churns to foam,

And home the ship veers.

Who steers?

Some power moves our lodestar from its place,

Or swings the ship.

Some lever turns the nations.

Grasp that lever at a crisis,

And the magic power of Isis

Will create you sons, a legion,

Swarming out of every region,

Lifting hands both strong and clean

To learn to run the old machine.

Feel the thrill

As your will

Takes the wheel;

The world

Whirl'd aimless, now turns from afar

Toward its destined star.

What new comfort is this,

What bliss,

What enrichment of life,

Just to know that the strife

Is not world against world,

Not one nation hurl'd 'gainst another,

Brother against brother,

But the world against Fate,

And a union of all the wide lands,

Soon or late,

With the Wheel in our hands!

Is the Wheel a mechanical thing?

A bolt, a pin, a ring,

A work of gears and pinions?

The world's dominions

Are material things. Who sings

The Spirit?

The promise is that man shall have the earth.

Aha! There is another Man. Never fear it.

To grasp the Wheel is but to share

A new birth,

And dare to realize there is a food

For babes who first begin to seek their highest spirit's good.

VIII

Feel then

The thrill again!

Grasp the Great Wheel, men,

All!

All must steer, though the ship veer

Perilously near to the rocks;

Though the stars fall,

All,

All must sight

The lodestar through the night,

And stand the ship's shocks.

WORDS, WORDS! BECAUSE THE SOUL IS SICK;

BECAUSE THERE IS NO SOUL, WORDS! WORDS MORE THICK.

So?

Throw the stick over!

Leap to the air.

In that first moment, leaving earth behind,

More than in the babel of a thousand poets,

Or ten thousand wise men's fare,

Is the soul fed. Something intangible,

Drawn from the ether, starts the soul breathing.

Be not content to stand and contemplate the plane's wide soaring;

Pile in, and take the heights, and learn to love the engine's roaring.

Go!

IX

Here, now, at last !

The first blast of the air in your face

Explains all.

If you fall

Through some flaw in the rods,

Call! The gods

Will not hear in their grace nor be moved by your fear.

You must steer, and control the thing, body and soul.

The law

Is as simple as Justice—and stern:

We most learn to command.

Land

Where yon will on the earth,

The worth

Of a life there is measured by flights to the heights,

By the conquest of fear, by the boldness and vision

That flee at the gods' derision,

And mount

To the very fount of life,

Fighting for breath

To jeer at Death;

Brave

To return to the earth,

To the beauty of life, and its mirth,

Or to sink to the grave.

Sing, then, with the stars,

As you fly your planes higher. Leap from the ground,

Leave the church for the steeple;

Make a joyous sound; let it swell to the bars

Of high heaven;

And leaven

Your spiritual mirth with the smells of the earth;

Inhale the mad mood of a conquering people.

Take joy in the dust of our race against Time,

In the smells of the oils, and the rubber, and brakebands;

Demand that Life give you your portion of joy!

Afar,

See the gleams

Of our lodestar. At last,

From the past we are shaking our shackles and taking

The Wheel in our hands.

FOR WE KNOW THAT THE POWER IS BUT THE DESIRE:

THE WINGS ARE WITHIN US ON WHICH WE MOUNT HIGHER.

X

Sing the lands of our dreams. Make them real.

We can feel this strong passion for life

And not lose in the strife

All we live for and strive for.

The goal, sing!

And harp not of rest,

Nor the breath from the isles of the blest

And the haunts of the soul,

And of Death.

If out across Numidia I could make my way

By camel caravan to some cool spring, by night

Beneath the stars, I think I might find voice

To say:

"Thank all the stars that sing and fight

That I have had my choice,

And live

When I can give

All that I love of Justice,

All that I sense of Beauty,

To an age that prates not Duty,

But in the gear

Of an engineer

Drives where the dust is

And swallows the grime

In the race against Time."

XI

Our life is not this fretful hour alone;

Wild, harried days without tranquility;

Cranking gas engines, fighting with the phone,

And marveling at the strange perversity

Of things inanimate. Somewhere,

Not one, but all,

Will rise to see the emptiness of life like this,

And, yet, to call,

Thrice blessed this high-tension air

In which, as in a bell-jar, we are caged;

And not because the laboratory test

Has any merit;

Then were our natures void, outraged,

Life a jest,

And we sad fools to bear it.

Yet so

Will go

The world, till, hurl'd to eternity,

We'll see more clear, that every atom of the universe

Has some self-power, some will;

Call it inertia, or dynamic force,

Or call it stubbornness, or high intent,

Sweat to circumvent it, curse, or fight until

As a matter of course, seen near,

It resolves itself into something clear,

A spiritual problem, something new,

And I, and you

Lay hold again, with the sense to know

We can work the problem and live as we go.

XII

But, if the spirit could take hold anew,

Here, now!

If I and you

Could, by some magic of our common sense

Bring all to bear on life !

Work the old engine with some super-power!

Well, these are strange days:

Tense

With a zest we dissipate in strife.

Is there one living at this hour

Has not felt thrill his inner man,

When, in control of some machine,

His mind hard working on some darling plan,

Upon the gradient of a stubborn hill

He put his foot upon the feed

And felt the world fall servient to his will?

Leapt to the summit, gazed upon the scene

Before, below him, filling some dim need?

That is the Spirit's stirring to new birth.

The earth

Is trembling in expectancy. Old laws

Are solving and dissolving. Something new

Is seeking utterance. If the cause

Must have results, results must have reactions.

Grip your mind. Accept the token

Of your own experiences; with no word spoken,

Making of the old no old exactions,

Bring the new to view.