| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917. |
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| 4. The Automobile |
| | | By Percy MacKaye |
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| 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 | 5 |
| Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine | |
| Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene | |
| Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills. | |
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| Then all of Nature’s old amazement seemed | |
| Sudden to ask us: “Is this also Man? | 10 |
| 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. | |
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