https://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Luisa.pfeiferOff the Road Database - User contributions [en]2026-04-11T14:57:44ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.43.8https://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=XI_(The_Right_of_Way)&diff=932XI (The Right of Way)2026-04-09T13:44:39Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Williams, William Carlos" additional_information="" year_of_publication="1923" genre="Poetry" publisher="Frontier Press" journal="Spring and All" page_range="49-50" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedearlier0000will/page/258/mode/2up" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
In passing with my mind<br />
on nothing in the world<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, law"><br />
<poem><br />
but the right of way<br />
I enjoyed on the road by<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="law"><br />
<poem><br />
virtue of the law – <br />
I saw<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
an elderly man who<br />
smiled and looked away<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
to the north past a house – <br />
a woman in blue<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
who was laughing and<br />
leaning forward to look up<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
into the man’s half <br />
averted face<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
and a boy of eight who was<br />
looking at the middle of<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
the man’s belly<br />
at a watchchain –<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The supreme importance<br />
of this nameless spectacle<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="speed"><br />
<poem><br />
sped me by them<br />
without a word –<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving"><br />
<poem><br />
Why bother where I went?<br />
for I went spinning on the<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, car part, road, road condition"><br />
<poem><br />
four wheels of my car<br />
along the wet road until<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
I saw a girl with one leg<br />
over the rail of a balcony<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Young_Housewife&diff=931The Young Housewife2026-04-09T13:32:27Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Williams, William Carlos" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/selectedpoemsofw00will/page/76/mode/2up" year_of_publication="1916" genre="Poetry" publisher="MacGowan" journal="William Carlos Williams: The Collected Poems Volume I 1909-1939" page_range="57"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, driver"><br />
<poem><br />
At ten A.M. the young housewife<br />
moves about in negligee behind<br />
the wooden walls of her husband's house.<br />
I pass solitary in my car.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, roadside"><br />
<poem><br />
Then again she comes to the curb<br />
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands<br />
shy, uncorseted, tucking in<br />
stray ends of hair, and I compare her<br />
to a fallen leaf.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, car part, driver, sound, speed, plant"><br />
<poem><br />
The noiseless wheels of my car<br />
rush with a crackling sound over<br />
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Spirit_of_Transportation&diff=930The Spirit of Transportation2026-04-09T13:30:03Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Unknown"<br />
year_of_publication="1922"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Motor Land"<br />
page_range="23"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/motorland1922/page/n79/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
I am the Spirit of Things that Are,<br />
Born of an urgent need,<br />
Of the Force that lies<br />
In a Man's surmise<br />
In a day ere the Age of Speed.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
I was at hand when the primal herd<br />
Toiled o'er the heavy sledge,<br />
As they dragged their load<br />
To their cave abode<br />
By the rippling river's edge.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Mine was the thought in that early day,<br />
Stirred for the human weal,<br />
That inspired the sage<br />
In that darkened age<br />
With that vision of Life—the Wheel.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Then came the horse as the slave of man,<br />
Carriage and coach and four,<br />
And the years flashed by<br />
And the time was nigh,<br />
To reveal what the future bore.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, metaphor, pleasure, sublime"><br />
<poem><br />
Then came the quickening urge of Trade,<br />
Commerce must travel far,<br />
And my wings I gave<br />
To this earth-born slave<br />
With the joys of the motor car.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
I am the Spirit of Things that Are,<br />
Born of an urgent need,<br />
Of the Force that lies<br />
In a Man's surmise<br />
In a day ere the Age of Speed.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Song_of_the_Motor_Car&diff=929The Song of the Motor Car2026-04-09T13:27:18Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Naylor, James Ball"<br />
year_of_publication="1909"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Collier’s"<br />
page_range="22"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/colliers4219unse/page/n505/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, mountain, personification, technology, sound, topography"><br />
<poem><br />
I’m the coy and ingenuous toy of the strenuous<br />
::: Era of Civilized Man,<br />
I’m the truly respectable, duly delectable<br />
::: Outcome of project and plan;<br />
And my gassy and thunderful, massy and wonderful<br />
::: Shape splits the landscape in twain,<br />
As I race where the fountain speaks grace to the mountain peaks&mdash;<br />
::: Then over valley and plain.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, sound, onomatopoeia, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
:::<i>Oh! it’s&mdash;“honk, honk-honk!”&mdash;is the song I sing</i><br />
:::::: <i>In the cool of the morning gray,</i><br />
::: <i>And it’s&mdash;“honk, honk-honk!”&mdash;is the raucous ring</i><br />
:::::: <i>Of my voice at the close of day;</i><br />
::: <i>And the echoes wake&mdash;and the echoes quake,</i><br />
:::::: <i>In their sylvan retreats afar;</i><br />
::: <i>For I am the fizzing, the buzzing, and whizzing,</i><br />
:::::: <i>Redoubtable Motor Car!</i><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, driving, sound, pedestrian, animal"><br />
<poem><br />
I’m the snappiest, pluckiest, happy-go-luckiest<br />
::: Work of Man’s reckless career&mdash;<br />
The machine of divinity green asininity<br />
::: Never can conquer or steer;<br />
And there’s never a note or bar honked by the Motor Car<br />
::: Rounding an angle or curve,<br />
But it cheats the pedestrian&mdash;beats the equestrian&mdash;<br />
::: Out of his poise and his nerve.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, sound, night"><br />
<poem><br />
::: <i>For it’s&mdash;“honk, honk-honk!”&mdash;is the song I sing</i><br />
:::::: <i>In the blaze of the noonday bright,</i><br />
::: <i>And it’s&mdash;“honk, honk-honk!”&mdash;is the raucous ring</i><br />
:::::: <i>Of my voice in the starry night;</i><br />
::: <i>And the echoes quake and shiver and shake,</i><br />
:::::: <i>In their rocky retreats afar;</i><br />
::: <i>For I am the puffing, the chugging, and chuffing</i><br />
:::::: <i>And masterful Motor Car!</i><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, summer, technology, wind, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
Through the haze of the dreamiest days of the gleamiest<br />
::: Summers I speed to and fro,<br />
In the height of the glorious, mighty, uproarious<br />
::: Tempest I come and I go;<br />
I’m the tool and the servant, the cool and observant<br />
::: Rare creature of project and plan,<br />
And the coy and ingenuous toy of the strenuous<br />
::: Era of Civilized Man.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, sound"><br />
<poem><br />
::: <i>And it’s&mdash;“honk, honk-honk!”&mdash;is the song I sing</i><br />
:::::: <i>In the cool of the ev'ning’s hush.</i><br />
::: <i>And it’s&mdash;“honk, honk-honk!”&mdash;is the raucous ring</i><br />
:::::: <i>Of my voice in the morning’s blush;</i><br />
::: <i>And in the echoes wake&mdash;and the echoes shake,</i><br />
:::::: <i>In their woody retreats afar;</i><br />
::: <i>For I am the purring, the whizzing, and whirring</i><br />
:::::: <i>And marvelous Motor Car!</i><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Small_Town_Celebrates&diff=928The Small Town Celebrates2026-04-09T13:17:58Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Wilson Baker, Karle" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/modernversebriti00forb/page/110/mode/2up" year_of_publication="1921" genre="Poetry" publisher="Henry Holt and Company" journal="Modern Verse: British and American" page_range="111-113"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="car, personification, sound"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, sound, anthropomorphism, night"><br />
<poem><br />
We tumbled out into the starry dark<br />
Under the cold stars; still the sirens shrieked,<br />
As we reached the square, two rockets hissed<br />
And flowered: they were the only two in town.<br />
Down streamed the people, blowing frosty breath<br />
Under the lamps&mdash;the mayor and the marshal,<br />
The fire department, members of the band,<br />
Buttoning their clothes with one hand, while the other<br />
Clutched a cold clarionet or piccolo<br />
That shivered for its first ecstatic squeal.<br />
We had no cannon&mdash;we made anvils serve.<br />
Just as our fathers did when Sumter fell;<br />
And all a little town could do, to show<br />
That twenty haughty cities heaped together<br />
Could not be half so proud and glad as we,<br />
We did. Soon a procession formed itself&mdash;<br />
Prosperous and poor, young, old, and staid and gay,<br />
Every glad soul who'd had the hardihood<br />
To jump from a warm bed at four o'clock<br />
Into the starry blackness. Round the square&mdash;<br />
A most unmilitary sight&mdash;it pranced,<br />
Straggled and shouted, while the street-lamps blinked<br />
In sleepy wonder.<br />
:::::::: At the very end<br />
Where the procession dwindled to a tail,<br />
Shuffled Old Boozer. From a snorting car<br />
But just arrived, a leading citizen<br />
Sprang to the pavement.<br />
:::::::::::: “Hallelujah, Boss!<br />
“We's whop de Kaiser!”<br />
::::::::::: “Well, you old black fraud,”<br />
(The judge's smile was hiding in his beard)<br />
“What's he to you?”<br />
::::::::: Old Boozer bobbed and blinked<br />
Under the lamps; another moment, he<br />
Had scrambled to the base about the post,<br />
And through the nearer crowd the shout went round,<br />
“Listen&mdash;Old Boozer's going to preach!”<br />
::::::::::::::::::: He raised<br />
His trancéd eyes. A moment's pause.<br />
::::::::::::::::: “O Lawd,<br />
You heah dis gemman ax me dat jes' now,<br />
'What's he to Boozer'? Doan he know, O Lawd,<br />
Dat Kaiser's boot-heel jes' been tinglin' up<br />
To stomp on Boozer? Doan he know de po',<br />
De feeble, an' de littlesome toddlin' chile<br />
Dat scream to Hebben when he tromp 'em down,<br />
Hab drug dat Bad Man right down off his throne<br />
To ebberlastin' torment? Glory, Lawd!<br />
We done pass through de Red Sea! Glory, Lawd!<br />
De Lawd done drug de mighty from his seat!<br />
He done exalted dem ob low degree!<br />
He sabe de spark from dem dat stomp it out!<br />
He sabe de seed from dem dat tromp it down!<br />
He sabe de lebben strugglin' in de lump!<br />
He sabe de&mdash;“<br />
::::::: Cheering, laughing, moving on,<br />
With cries of “Go it, Boozer!” the crowd swirled<br />
About his perch; but, as I passed, I saw<br />
A red-haired boy, who stood, and did not move,<br />
But gazed and gazed, as if the old man's words<br />
Raised visions. In his shivering arms he held<br />
A struggling puppy; once I heard him say,<br />
“Down, Woodrow!” but he scarcely seemed to know<br />
He spoke. The stars paled slowly overhead;<br />
The din increased; the crowd surged; but the boy<br />
Stood rapt. As I turned back once more, I saw<br />
Full morning on his face. And at the end<br />
Of our one down-town street, the laughing sun<br />
Came shouting up, belated, but most glad.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Roadway&diff=927The Roadway2026-04-09T13:15:23Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Jones, Joshua Henry" year_of_publication="1921" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/poemsoffourseas00jone/page/2/mode/2up" genre="Poetry" journal="Poems of the Four Seas" publisher="Books for Libraries Press" page_range="3"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, road condition, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
There are hill roads and dale roads,<br />
:And roads that bind and twist;<br />
Some wide roads and cramped roads<br />
:Which many souls have missed.<br />
There are blind roads and night roads<br />
:That lead to where we fall.<br />
The long road's a hard road<br />
:But the best road after all.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road condition, metaphor, dust, West, affect"><br />
<poem><br />
Some good roads, some bad roads<br />
:Are roads of dust and grime;<br />
Some rest roads and toil roads,<br />
:Then some that lead to crime.<br />
The best road's the west road<br />
:Which becks with quiet call.<br />
The straight road, though hard road,<br />
:Is the best road after all.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road condition, metaphor, affect, West"><br />
<poem><br />
There's a love road and a hate road;<br />
:And this last road trails to hell.<br />
There's a cool road; a clean road<br />
:That leads by friendship's well.<br />
But the best road is the west road<br />
:That calls us one and all.<br />
'Tis a bright road—a right road<br />
:And—the one road after all.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Road_of_Human_Life&diff=926The Road of Human Life2026-04-09T13:13:40Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Jamison, Roscoe C."<br />
year_of_publication="1918"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Press of the Gray Printing Company"<br />
journal="Negro Soldiers (“These Truly are the Brave”) and other poems by Roscoe C. Jamison"<br />
page_range=""<br />
additional_information="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010002630985&seq=14"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, metaphysics, death"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, metaphor, affect, death"><br />
<poem><br />
Along the Road of Human Life,<br />
So very near, on either side,<br />
With winds and storms and billows rife,<br />
There is a sea that's wide;<br />
And woe to him who trips and falls<br />
Into that darkening tide.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect"><br />
<poem><br />
Oh! it is all that Hope can do<br />
To keep lifted our eyes<br />
And day by day our strength renew<br />
With visions and dream-lies;<br />
To lead us by that awful flood<br />
From which no soul may rise.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, coast, death"><br />
<poem><br />
Despair! Despair! That is the sea<br />
Which ever is at our feet,<br />
Seeks to envelop you and me,<br />
In ruin full, complete,<br />
Cause us to deem this life a curse<br />
And make death's name sound sweet.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, scenery"><br />
<poem><br />
Work, Laugh and Love! Thus only can<br />
The trembling spirit hold,<br />
Its journey true across the span<br />
Of years that doth unfold,<br />
Amid earth's barren scenery<br />
Until life's tale is told!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Road_of_Human_Life&diff=925The Road of Human Life2026-04-09T13:13:05Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Jamison, Roscoe C."<br />
year_of_publication="1918"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Press of the Gray Printing Company"<br />
journal="Negro Soldiers (“These Truly are the Brave”) and other poems by Roscoe C. Jamison"<br />
page_range=""<br />
additional_informatio="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010002630985&seq=14"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, metaphysics, death"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, metaphor, affect, death"><br />
<poem><br />
Along the Road of Human Life,<br />
So very near, on either side,<br />
With winds and storms and billows rife,<br />
There is a sea that's wide;<br />
And woe to him who trips and falls<br />
Into that darkening tide.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect"><br />
<poem><br />
Oh! it is all that Hope can do<br />
To keep lifted our eyes<br />
And day by day our strength renew<br />
With visions and dream-lies;<br />
To lead us by that awful flood<br />
From which no soul may rise.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, coast, death"><br />
<poem><br />
Despair! Despair! That is the sea<br />
Which ever is at our feet,<br />
Seeks to envelop you and me,<br />
In ruin full, complete,<br />
Cause us to deem this life a curse<br />
And make death's name sound sweet.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, scenery"><br />
<poem><br />
Work, Laugh and Love! Thus only can<br />
The trembling spirit hold,<br />
Its journey true across the span<br />
Of years that doth unfold,<br />
Amid earth's barren scenery<br />
Until life's tale is told!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Road&diff=924The Road2026-04-09T13:02:59Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Johnson, Helene"<br />
year_of_publication="1926"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life"<br />
page_range="225"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1926-07_4_43/page/224/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, wind, tree, topography, sound, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze,<br />
A leaping clay hill lost among the trees,<br />
The bleeding note of rapture streaming thrush<br />
Caught in a drowsy hush<br />
And stretched out in a single singing line of dusky song.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, dust, road, road condition, African American, scenery"><br />
<poem><br />
Ah little road, brown as my race is brown,<br />
Your trodden beauty like our trodden pride,<br />
Dust of the dust, they must not bruise you down.<br />
Rise to one brimming golden, spilling cry!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Baker%27s_Boy&diff=923The Baker's Boy2026-04-09T12:49:04Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Newsome, Mary Effie Lee" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/goldenslippersan00bont/page/26/mode/2up" year_of_publication="1927" genre="Poetry" publisher="Harper & Row" journal="Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers" page_range="26"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, road, whiteness"><br />
<poem><br />
The baker's boy delivers loaves<br />
All up and down our street.<br />
His car is white, his clothes are white,<br />
White to his very feet.<br />
I wonder if he stays that way.<br />
I don't see how he does all day.<br />
I’d like to watch him going home<br />
When all the loaves are out.<br />
His clothes must look quite different then,<br />
At least I have no doubt.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_ABC_of_the_Automobile&diff=922The ABC of the Automobile2026-04-09T12:46:21Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Weeks, Carrie Foote"<br />
additional_information=""<br />
year_of_publication="1906"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="The Outing Magazine"<br />
page_range="687"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/sim_outing-sport-adventure-travel-fiction_1906-03_47_6_0/page/686/mode/2up" <br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>A</b> at the start was an Automobile.<br />
::: It answers to motor car, just as you feel. <br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>B</b> is the Brake that gives you control.<br />
::: If the Bubble Breaks you, you're in a Big hole. <br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>C</b> stands for Cylinder, and your Chauffeur,<br />
::: Who takes many Chances at sixty-five per.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>D</b> is the up-to-Date Dealer serene,<br />
::: And the Dance that he leads you about the machine.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>E</b> is Experience for young and old;<br />
::: We pay dearly for it, and often are sold.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>F</b> is the Factory where you will find<br />
::: It is Foolish to Fuss, if they're four months behind.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="gasoline, infrastructure"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>G</b> is Garage, and the God, Gasoline,<br />
::: Who Guides all his subjects, yet never is seen.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="law, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>H</b> is H. P., your Heaven and Hell.<br />
::: What pace are you making? The police can tell.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>I</b> is Ignition, Insurance and Ice.<br />
::: These three you must have on an expert's advice.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, risk, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>J</b> might stand now for a new Jeremiah,<br />
::: Who foretells disasters by flame, speed, or tire.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>K</b> stands for all Kinds of cars on the mart.<br />
::: To pick the Kingpin would take cleverest art.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, law"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>L</b> stands for License, and Lawyer, and Lie—<br />
::: You're in touch with them all when an auto you buy.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, car model, road, map"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>M</b> is the Model you choose with great care,<br />
::: The Map that you follow for roads that aren’t there.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, law"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>N</b> is the Number attached to your car,<br />
::: And the Name (not a rose) that proclaims it a star.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, oil"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>O</b> is the Oil used for food and for drink,<br />
::: By this Ogre, half human, the real missing link.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>P</b> stands for "Plain Clothes Men" always about.<br />
::: Police you can spot. For the others, watch out.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>Q</b> is the Quest for a feminine hat,<br />
::: That will stay on the head, and have style, and all that.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="law"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>R</b> stands foe Rules which must be obeyed,<br />
::: And the Races we win,—in our dreams, I'm afraid.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>S</b> means the Songs that we sing late at night,<br />
::: As the Search light weaves Shadows, now ghostly, now bright.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>T</b> is the Tonneau for five, three or two.<br />
::: If a Tack finds your Tire, it’s all up with you.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, law"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>U</b> is the Unruly, and also Uncertain.<br />
::: On the manners of autos and maids drop the curtain.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
<b>V</b> is Vibration—in sunshine, in gale,<br />
::: It's with us like goggles, or long auto Veil.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>W</b> stands for Weight, and all kinds of Wheels.<br />
::: (Not Wheels in your head, or Weight in your heels)<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, risk"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>X</b> is Xcess. Pray keep well in hand,<br />
::: For motor-car maniacs people the land.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>Y</b> stands for Yearnings to go far and fast.<br />
::: O bright Yellow Moon! we'll reach you at last.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, skill"><br />
<poem><br />
<b>Z</b> is the Zany so puffed up with Zeal,<br />
::: That he thinks he has mastered the automobile.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Sunday_Morning&diff=921Sunday Morning2026-04-09T12:28:39Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="MacNeice, Louis"<br />
year_of_publication="1923"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Faber and Faber"<br />
journal="The Faber Book of Modern Verse"<br />
page_range="304"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/louismacneicepoe0000macn/page/8/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="pleasure, speed, maintenance, car part, road"><br />
<poem><br />
Down the road someone is practising scales,<br />
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,<br />
Man’s heart expands to tinker with his car<br />
For this is Sunday morning, Fate’s great bazaar,<br />
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,<br />
And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,<br />
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast<br />
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,<br />
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time<br />
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="architecture, music, sound, metaphor, haptic, death"><br />
<poem><br />
But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire<br />
Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire<br />
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures<br />
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Traffic_of_Life&diff=920The Traffic of Life2026-04-09T12:26:18Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Fraser, Vonard"<br />
year_of_publication="1922"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Motor Land"<br />
page_range="16"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/motorland1922/page/n445/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="forest, ocean, topography, music, sound, personification, road, scenery"><br />
<poem><br />
Through the forest aisles to the silver sea,<br />
To the crest of the sun-kissed hills,<br />
As the motor sings on the Open Road<br />
And the heart of all nature thrills.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, power, speed, pleasure, road, personification, haptic, summer"><br />
<poem><br />
There’s a subtle lure in the summer air,<br />
Wherever the road may lead,<br />
And a power that throbs with the pulsing gears—<br />
What a joy in the Age of Speed!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="animal"><br />
<poem><br />
There’s a pleasure here that our fathers knew<br />
At the pull of the dappled greys,<br />
Or the Roman lord with his Arab steed<br />
As he basked in the public gaze.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="snow, sunshine, driving, mountain, scenery, traffic, pleasure"><br />
<poem><br />
From the snow-clad peaks of the Siskiyous<br />
To the warmth of the southern sun,<br />
Over roads that wind through the marts of trade,<br />
Does the traffic of pleasure run.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="animal, metaphor, technology, car, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
And we laugh at Time as the tardy Hours<br />
In their gallop from Day’s red dawn<br />
Are outdistanced far in the swift-sped race<br />
By this product of brain and brawn.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="health, spring, winter"><br />
<poem><br />
lt’s the key to health and a newer life,<br />
Where the treasures of Nature lie,<br />
As the seasons pass from the Spring’s sweet breath<br />
To the chill of the Winter's sigh.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="health, agency, haptic, car"><br />
<poem><br />
And the dream of man is a broader dream<br />
With the span of his life’s increase,<br />
And the throbbing pulse of the motor car<br />
Bears him nearer the haunts of Peace.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="rural, urban, traffic"><br />
<poem><br />
And the country calls to the city-bred,<br />
"Come away from the fields of strife,<br />
For a breath of air from the snow-clad peaks<br />
In the traffic of Joy is Life.”<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Spring_in_California&diff=919Spring in California2026-04-09T12:24:55Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Fraser, Vonard"<br />
year_of_publication="1922"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Motor Land"<br />
page_range="24"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/motorland1922/page/n243/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, sound, music, personification, pleasure, road, sky, spring"><br />
<poem><br />
There's a strident call in the Open Road<br />
Where the Spring's glad message lies,<br />
And the motor sings me a joyous song<br />
With a lilt of the azure skies.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="highway, plant, metaphor, road, spring"><br />
<poem><br />
O’er the ribboned line of the Great Highway,<br />
Where the wildflower carpet's laid,<br />
Where the poppy opens her golden cup<br />
As a symbol of Spring arrayed.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="forest, tree, plant"><br />
<poem><br />
Through the forests, born in an ancient day,<br />
With their banks of moss and bloom,<br />
And the bordered aisles of the canyons dim<br />
Where the giant Redwoods loom.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="snow, lake, animal, sound"><br />
<poem><br />
Then o'er hill and dale to the realm of snow,<br />
To the mirrored lakes and rills,<br />
While the skylark's call from the meadows green<br />
Can be heard on a thousand hills.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
For the feverish press in this Game of Life<br />
What a balm does Nature bear!<br />
What a draught of health in the new-turned earth,<br />
What a change from the realm of Care!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, personification, pleasure, music, sound, spring"><br />
<poem><br />
O, the key to much that the world loves best<br />
Can be found beside the way,<br />
If your motor sings you a joyous song<br />
At the dawn of a bright spring day.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Quatrains&diff=918Quatrains2026-04-09T12:20:30Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Service, Robert William" year_of_publication="1907" genre="Poetry" publisher="Barse & Hopkins" journal="Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses" page_range="62-63" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedpoemsof0000serv/page/40/mode/2up" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, metaphor, metaphysics"><br />
<poem><br />
One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar,<br />
To flicker feebly, or to soar, a star;<br />
It lies with thee—the choice is thine, is thine,<br />
To hit the ties or drive thy auto-car.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
I answered Her: The choice is mine—ah, no!<br />
We all were made or marred long, long ago.<br />
The parts are written; hear the super wail:<br />
"Who is stage-managing this cosmic show?"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Blind fools of fate and slaves of circumstance,<br />
Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance.<br />
From gloom where mocks that will-o'-wisp, Free-will<br />
I heard a voice cry: "Say, give us a chance."<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Chance! Oh, there is no chance! The scene is set.<br />
Up with the curtain! Man, the marionette,<br />
Resumes his part. The gods will work the wires.<br />
They've got it all down fine, you bet, you bet!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
It's all decreed—the mighty earthquake crash;<br />
The countless constellations' wheel and flash;<br />
The rise and fall of empires, war's red tide;<br />
The composition of your dinner hash.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
There's no haphazard in this world of ours.<br />
Cause and effect are grim, relentless powers.<br />
They rule the world. (A king was shot last night;<br />
Last night I held the joker and both bowers.)<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
From out the mesh of fate our heads we thrust.<br />
We can't do what we would, but what we must.<br />
Heredity has got us in a cinch—<br />
(Consoling thought when you've been on a "bust.")<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Hark to the song where spheral voices blend:<br />
"There's no beginning, never will be end."<br />
It makes us nutty; hang the astral chimes!<br />
The table's spread; come, let us dine, my friend.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Provincetown&diff=917Provincetown2026-04-09T12:17:22Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Hersey, Marie Louise"<br />
additional_information=""<br />
year_of_publication="1921"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Henry Holt and Company"<br />
journal="Modern Verse: British and American"<br />
page_range="159-161"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/modernversebriti0000forb/page/158/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="summer, city, zoomorphism, sound, east, road, traffic, East, sound, personification, affect, African American"><br />
<poem><br />
All summer in the close-locked streets the crowd<br />
Elbows its way past glittering shops to strains<br />
Of noisy rag-time, men and girls, dark skinned,—<br />
From warmer foreign waters they have come<br />
To our New England. Purring like sleek cats<br />
The cushioned motors of the rich crawl through<br />
While black-haired babies scurry to the curb:<br />
Pedro, Maria, little Gabriel<br />
Whose red bandana mothers selling fruit<br />
Have this in common with the fresh white caps<br />
Of those first immigrants—courage to leave<br />
Familiar hearths and build new memories.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road surface, cobblestone, city, personification, road, law, urban, car, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
Blood of their blood who shaped these sloping roofs<br />
And low arched doorways, laid the cobble stones<br />
Not meant for motors,—you and I rejoice<br />
When roof and spire sink deep into the night<br />
And all the little streets reach out their arms<br />
To be received into the salt-drenched dark.<br />
Then Provincetown comes to her own again,<br />
Draws round her like a cloak that shelters her<br />
From too swift changes of the passing years<br />
The dunes, the sea, the silent hilltop grounds<br />
Where solemn groups of leaning headstones hold<br />
Perpetual reunion of her dead.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="other mobilities"><br />
<poem><br />
At dusk we feel our way along the wharf<br />
That juts into the harbor: anchored ships<br />
With lifting prow and slowly rocking mast<br />
Ink out their profiles; fishing dories scull<br />
With muffled lamps that glimmer through the spray;<br />
We hear the water plash among the piers<br />
Rotted with moss, long after sunset stay<br />
To watch the dim sky-changes ripple down<br />
The length of quiet ocean to our feet<br />
Till on the sea rim rising like a world<br />
Bigger than ours, and laying bare the ships<br />
In shadowy stillness, swells the yellow moon.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Between this blue intensity of sea<br />
And rolling dunes of white-hot sand that burn<br />
All day across a clean salt wilderness<br />
On shores grown sacred as a place of prayer,<br />
Shine bright invisible footsteps of a band<br />
Of firm-lipped men and women who endured<br />
Partings from kindred, hardship, famine, death,<br />
And won for us three hundred years ago<br />
A reverent proud freedom of the soul.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Portrait_of_a_Machine&diff=916Portrait of a Machine2026-04-09T12:14:28Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Untermeyer, Louis"<br />
year_of_publication="1922"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Hartcourt, Brace and Company"<br />
journal="American Poetry"<br />
page_range="114"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/selectedpoemspar00unte/page/126/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="zoomorphism, engine, personification, metaphor, sound, oil"><br />
<poem><br />
What nudity is beautiful as this<br />
Obedient monster purring at its toil;<br />
These naked iron muscles dripping oil<br />
And the sure-fingered rods that never miss.<br />
This long and shining flank of metal is<br />
Magic that greasy labor cannot spoil;<br />
While this vast engine that could rend the soil<br />
Conceals its fury with a gentle hiss.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphysics, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
It does not vent its loathing, does not turn<br />
Upon its makers with destroying hate.<br />
It bears a deeper malice; lives to earn<br />
Its master's bread and laughs to see this great<br />
Lord of the earth, who rules but cannot learn,<br />
Become the slave of what his slaves create.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=People%27s_Surroundings&diff=915People's Surroundings2026-04-09T12:10:19Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Moore, Marianne" year_of_publication="1924" genre="Poetry" publisher="Farrar, Straus and Giroux" journal="Observations" page_range="65-66" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/poemsofmariannem0000moor_o4n8/page/148/mode/2up" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
They answer one’s questions, <br />
a deal table compact with the wall; <br />
in this dried bone of arrangement<br />
one’s “natural promptness” is compressed, not crowded out;<br />
one’s style is not lost in such simplicity.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The palace furniture, so old-fashioned, so old-fashionable;<br />
Sèvres china and the fireplace dogs—<br />
bronze dromios with pointed ears, as obsolete as pugs;<br />
one has one’s preferences in the matter of bad furniture,<br />
and this is not one’s choice,<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The vast indestructible necropolis<br />
of composite Yawman-Erbe separable units;<br />
the steel, the oak, the glass, the Poor Richard publications<br />
containing the public secrets of efficiency<br />
on paper so thin that “one thousand four hundred and twenty pages make one inch,”<br />
exclaiming, so to speak, When you take my time, you take something I had meant to use;<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="highway, infrastructure, plant, tree, garden"><br />
<poem><br />
the highway hid by fir trees in rhododendron twenty feet deep, <br />
the peacocks, hand-forged gates, old Persian velvet,<br />
roses outlined in pale black on an ivory ground,<br />
the pierced iron shadows of the cedars,<br />
Chinese carved glass, old Waterford, lettered ladies;<br />
landscape gardening twisted into permanence;<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, car part, car, haptic, smell, sense"><br />
<poem><br />
straight lines over such great distances as one finds in Utah or in Texas,<br />
where people do not have to be told<br />
that a good brake is as important as a good motor; <br />
where by means of extra sense-cells in the skin<br />
they can, like trout, smell what is coming—<br />
those cool sirs with the explicit sensory apparatus of common sense,<br />
who know the exact distance between two points as the crow flies;<br />
there is something attractive about a mind that moves in a straight line—<br />
the municipal bat roost of mosquito warfare; <br />
the American string quartet;<br />
these are questions more than answers,<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
and Bluebeard’s Tower above the coral reefs,<br />
the magic mousetrap closing on all points of the compass,<br />
capping like petrified surf the furious azure of the bay,<br />
where there is no dust, and life is like a lemon leaf,<br />
a green piece of tough translucent parchment, <br />
where the crimson, the copper, and the Chinese vermilion of the poincianas<br />
set fire to the masonry and turquoise blues refute the clock;<br />
this dungeon with odd notions of hospitality,<br />
with its “chessmen carved out of moonstones,”<br />
its mockingbirds, fringed lilies, and hibiscus,<br />
its black butterflies with blue half circles on their wings,<br />
tan goats with onyx ears, its lizards glittering and without thickness,<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="technology"><br />
<poem><br />
like splashes of fire and silver on the pierced turquoise of the lattices<br />
and the acacia-like lady shivering at the touch of a hand,<br />
lost in a small collision of the orchids—<br />
dyed quicksilver let fall<br />
to disappear like an obedient chameleon in fifty shades of mauve and amethyst.<br />
Here where the mind of this establishment has come to the conclusion <br />
that it would be impossible to revolve about oneself too much,<br />
sophistication has, “like an escalator,” “cut the nerve of progress.”<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="technology, factory, infrastructure, engine, car part"><br />
<poem><br />
In these noncommittal, personal-impersonal expressions of appearance,<br />
the eye knows what to skip;<br />
the physiognomy of conduct must not reveal the skeleton;<br />
“a setting must not have the air of being one,”<br />
yet with X-ray-like inquisitive intensity upon it, the surfaces go back;<br />
the interfering fringes of expression are but a stain on what stands out,<br />
there is neither up nor down to it;<br />
we see the exterior and the fundamental structure—<br />
captains of armies, cooks, carpenters,<br />
cutlers, gamesters, surgeons and armorers,<br />
lapidaries, silkmen, glovers, fiddlers and ballad singers,<br />
sextons of churches, dyers of black cloth, hostlers and chimney-sweeps,<br />
queens, countesses, ladies, emperors, travelers and mariners,<br />
dukes, princes and gentlemen, <br />
in their respective places—<br />
camps, forges and battlefields,<br />
conventions, oratories and wardrobes,<br />
dens, deserts, railway stations, asylums and places where engines are made,<br />
shops, prisons, brickyards and altars of churches—<br />
in magnificent places clean and decent,<br />
castles, palaces, dining halls, theaters and imperial audience chambers.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=On_The_Road_to_Nowhere&diff=914On The Road to Nowhere2026-04-09T12:07:55Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Lindsay, Vachel" additional_information="" year_of_publication="1916" genre="Poetry" publisher="Macmillan" journal="Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty" page_range="99-100" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedpoemsof0000lind/page/296/mode/2up" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="rural"><br />
<poem><br />
Upon Returning to the Country Road<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
On the road to nowhere<br />
What wild oats did you sow<br />
When you left your father's house<br />
With your cheeks aglow?<br />
Eyes so strained and eager<br />
To see what you might see?<br />
Were you thief of were you fool<br />
Or most nobly free?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, plant, road condition, slowness"><br />
<poem><br />
Were the tramp-days knightly,<br />
True sowing of wild seed?<br />
Did you dare to make the songs<br />
Vanquished workmen need?<br />
Did you waste much money<br />
To deck a leper's feast?<br />
Love the truth, defy the crowd<br />
Scandalize the priest?<br />
On the road to nowhere<br />
What wild oats did you sow?<br />
Stupids find the nowhere-road<br />
Dusty, grim and slow.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Ere their sowing's ended<br />
They turn them on their track,<br />
Look at the caitiff craven wights<br />
Repentant, hurrying back!<br />
Grown ashamed of nowhere,<br />
Of rags endured for years,<br />
Lust for velvet in their hearts,<br />
Pierced with Mammon's spears,<br />
All but a few fanatics<br />
Give up their darling goal,<br />
Seek to be as others are,<br />
Stultify the soul.<br />
Reapings now confront them,<br />
Glut them, or destroy.<br />
Curious seeds, grain or weeds<br />
Sown with awful joy.<br />
Hurried is their harvest,<br />
They make soft peace with men.<br />
Pilgrims pass. They care not,<br />
Will not tramp again.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
O nowhere, golden nowhere!<br />
Sages and fools go on<br />
To your chaotic ocean,<br />
To your tremendous dawn.<br />
Far in your fair dream-haven,<br />
Is nothing or is all...<br />
They press on, singing, sowing<br />
Wild deeds without recall!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=On_the_Road&diff=913On the Road2026-04-09T12:04:50Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Shackelford, Otis M."<br />
additional_information=""<br />
year_of_publication="1909"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Franklin Hudson Publishing"<br />
journal="Seeking the Best"<br />
page_range="98"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/seekingbestdedi00shacgoog/page/n106/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, race, animal"><br />
<poem><br />
They would steal old master's horses,<br />
Fat and sleek and full of spirit;<br />
Steal them while that he was sleeping,<br />
Soundly sleeping in his mansion;<br />
From the stable would they steal them,<br />
Ride them upward through the valley<br />
To the place of fun and frolic,<br />
Till they reached the very doorway<br />
Of the place of fun and frolic.<br />
There a score or more of Negroes<br />
Would assemble in the night-time,<br />
Would assemble for their pleasure,<br />
After toiling hard the day long,<br />
After toiling hard the week long.<br />
Thus they whiled away their sorrow,<br />
Thus they made their burdens lighter,<br />
Thus they had their recreation,<br />
Through a life that was a struggle.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=On_the_Great_Plateau&diff=912On the Great Plateau2026-04-09T11:41:37Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Wyatt, Edith" additional_information="" year_of_publication="1915" genre="Poetry" publisher="The Macmillan Company" journal="New Voices" page_range="343-344" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/windincornandot00wyatgoog/page/n46/mode/2up" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away, <br />
Cool-breathed waters dip and dally, linger towards another day&mdash;<br />
Far and far away&mdash;far away.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="agriculture, plant, road, scenery, sublime, West"><br />
<poem><br />
Slow their floating step, but tireless, terraced down the great Plateau. <br />
Towards our ways of steam and wireless, silver-paced the brook-beds go. <br />
Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince, <br />
Where the back-locked river’s ebb flows, miles and miles the valley glints, <br />
Shining backwards, singing downwards, towards horizons blue and bay. <br />
All the roofs the roads ensconce so dream of visions far away&mdash; <br />
Santa Cruz and Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Santa Fé. <br />
Ancient, sacred fears and faiths, ancient, sacred faiths and fears&mdash; <br />
Some were real, some were wraiths&mdash;Indian, Franciscan years, <br />
Built the Khivas, swung the bells; while the wind sang plain and free, <br />
"Turn your eyes from visioned hells!&mdash;look as far as you can see!" <br />
In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away, <br />
Dying dreams divide and dally, crystal-terraced waters sally&mdash; <br />
Linger towards another day, far and far away&mdash;far away. <br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
As you follow where you find them, up along the high Plateau, <br />
In the hollows left behind them Spanish chapels fade below&mdash;<br />
Shaded court and low corrals. In the vale the goat-herd browses. <br />
Hollyhocks are seneschals by the little buff-walled houses. <br />
Over grassy swale and alley have you ever seen it so&mdash; <br />
Up the Santa Clara Valley, riding on the Great Plateau? <br />
Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince, <br />
Where the trenchèd waters’ ebb flows, miles and miles the valley glints, <br />
Shining backwards, singing downwards towards horizons blue and bay. <br />
All the haunts the bluffs ensconce so breathe of visions far away, <br />
As you ride near Ildefonso back again to Santa Fé. <br />
Pecos, mellow with the years, tall-walled Taos&mdash;who can know <br />
Half the storied faiths and fears haunting Green New Mexico? <br />
Only from her open places down arroyos blue and bay, <br />
One wild grace of many graces dallies towards another day. <br />
Where her yellow tufa crumbles, something stars and grasses know, <br />
Something true, that crowns and humbles, shimmers from the Great Plateau: <br />
Blows where cool-paced waters dally from the stillness of Puyé, <br />
Down the Santa Clara Valley through the world from far away&mdash;<br />
Far and far away&mdash;far away.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Our_Singing_Strength&diff=911Our Singing Strength2026-04-09T11:38:26Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Frost, Robert"<br />
year_of_publication="1923"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Henry Holt"<br />
journal="New Hampshire"<br />
page_range="110-111"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.211502/page/n283/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="infrastructure, plant, snow, temperature, mud, personification, road, scenery, spring, weather, winter"><br />
<poem><br />
IT snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm<br />
The flakes could find no landing place to form.<br />
Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold,<br />
And still they failed of any lasting hold.<br />
They made no white impression on the black.<br />
They disappeared as if earth sent them back.<br />
Not till from separate flakes they changed at night<br />
To almost strips and tapes of ragged white<br />
Did grass and garden ground confess it snowed,<br />
And all go back to winter but the road.<br />
Next day the scene was piled and puffed and dead.<br />
The grass lay flattened under one great tread.<br />
Borne down until the end almost took root,<br />
The rangey bough anticipated fruit<br />
With snowballs cupped in every opening bud.<br />
The road alone maintained itself in mud,<br />
Whatever its secret was of greater heat<br />
From inward fires or brush of passing feet.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="air, animal, affect, risk, road, safety, driver, driving skill, metaphor, spring, tree, weather"><br />
<poem><br />
In spring more mortal singers than belong<br />
To any one place cover us with song.<br />
Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng;<br />
Some to go further north to Hudson's Bay,<br />
Some that have come too far north back away,<br />
Really a very few to build and stay.<br />
Now was seen how these liked belated snow.<br />
The fields had nowhere left for them to go;<br />
They'd soon exhausted all there was in flying;<br />
The trees they'd had enough of with once trying<br />
And setting off their heavy powder load.<br />
They could find nothing open but the road.<br />
So there they let their lives be narrowed in<br />
By thousands the bad weather made akin.<br />
The road became a channel running flocks<br />
Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks.<br />
I drove them under foot in bits of flight<br />
That kept the ground, almost disputing right<br />
Of way with me from apathy of wing,<br />
A talking twitter all they had to sing.<br />
A few I must have driven to despair<br />
Made quick asides, but having done in air<br />
A whir among white branches great and small<br />
As in some too much carven marble hall<br />
Where one false wing beat would have brought down all,<br />
Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover,<br />
To suffer the same driven nightmare over.<br />
One such storm in a lifetime couldn't teach them<br />
That back behind pursuit it couldn't reach them;<br />
None flew behind me to be left alone.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="weather"><br />
<poem><br />
Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown<br />
The country's singing strength thus brought together,<br />
That though repressed and moody with the weather<br />
Was none the less there ready to be freed<br />
And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=On_a_Tree_Fallen_Across_The_Road&diff=910On a Tree Fallen Across The Road2026-04-09T11:36:14Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Frost, Robert"<br />
year_of_publication="1923"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Henry Holt"<br />
journal="New Hampshire. A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes"<br />
page_range="109"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.211502/page/n281/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="tree, road, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
(To hear us talk)<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="tree, navigation, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
The tree the tempest with a crash of wood<br />
Throws down in front of us is not to bar<br />
Our passage to our journey's end for good,<br />
But just to ask us who we think we are<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road condition, risk, tree, personification, equipment"><br />
<poem><br />
Insisting always on our own way so.<br />
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,<br />
And make us get down in a foot of snow<br />
Debating what to do without an axe.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:<br />
We will not be put off the final goal<br />
We have it hidden in us to attain,<br />
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="agency, driving, safety"><br />
<poem><br />
And, tired of aimless circling in one place,<br />
Steer straight off after something into space. <br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Off_the_Highway&diff=909Off the Highway2026-04-09T11:33:49Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Huntington, Julia Weld"<br />
year_of_publication="1921"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Poetry Magazine"<br />
page_range="81"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/jstor-20573061/page/n1/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="infrastructure, roadside"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="plant, animal, sunshine, road side, scenery, smell, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
Lilacs lift leaves of cool satin<br />
And blossoms of mother-of-pearl<br />
Against the tarnished silver of the deserted house.<br />
Tall, exquisite grasses fill the door-yard with spray.<br />
Through the sun-drenched fragrance drifts the hazy monotone of bees.<br />
Tints of opal and jade; the hush of emerald shadows,<br />
And a sense of the past as a living presence <br />
Distil a haunting wistful peace.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=May_Day&diff=908May Day2026-04-09T11:30:31Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Teasdale, Sara"<br />
year_of_publication="1915"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="MacMillan"<br />
journal="Rivers to the Sea"<br />
page_range="23"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99253/page/n39/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, traffic"><br />
<poem><br />
The shining line of motors,<br />
The swaying motor-bus,<br />
The prancing dancing horses<br />
Are passing by for us.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The sunlight on the steeple,<br />
The toys we stop to see,<br />
The smiling passing people<br />
Are all for you and me.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
"I love you and I love you"—<br />
"And oh, I love you, too!"—<br />
"All of the flower girl's lilies<br />
Were only grown for you!"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="music, road, spring, urban"><br />
<poem><br />
Fifth Avenue and April<br />
And love and lack of care —<br />
The world is mad with music<br />
Too beautiful to bear.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Main_Street&diff=907Main Street2026-04-09T11:28:20Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Kilmer, Joyce"<br />
year_of_publication="1917"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="George H. Doran Company"<br />
journal="Main Street and Other Poems"<br />
page_range="13-15"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/joycekilmer0000unse/page/n125/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, snow"><br />
<poem><br />
I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea,<br />
But it isn't half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be<br />
When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow,<br />
And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="fall, plant, road, spring, anthropomorphism"><br />
<poem><br />
Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing,<br />
And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the Spring;<br />
I like to think of it white with frost or dusty in the heat,<br />
Because I think it is humaner than any other street.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="urban, traffic, anthropomorphism, haptic, road"><br />
<poem><br />
A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels,<br />
And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels:<br />
It is dully conscious of weight and speed and of work that never ends,<br />
But it cannot be human like Main Street, and recognise its friends.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="anthropomorphism, road"><br />
<poem><br />
There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day,<br />
And twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play.<br />
And there wasn't a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy<br />
That Main Street didn't remember, and somehow seem to enjoy.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="urban, affect, road, anthropomorphism, music, cobblestone, road surface"><br />
<poem><br />
The truck and the motor and trolley car and the elevated train<br />
They make the weary city street reverberate with pain:<br />
But there is yet an echo left deep down within my heart<br />
Of the music the Main Street cobblestones made beneath a butcher's cart.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, sublime"><br />
<poem><br />
God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky,<br />
That's the path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die.<br />
Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown,<br />
But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Lockerbie_Street&diff=906Lockerbie Street2026-04-09T11:23:12Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Carman, Bliss" additional_information="The poem was originally published in 1914. Full text: https://archive.org/details/aprilairsbookofn00carm_0/page/28/mode/2up" year_of_publication="1920" genre="Poetry" publisher="Snall, Maynard and Company" journal="April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics" page_range="29-30"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="road"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
For the birthday of James Whitcomb Riley, October 7, 1914.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="street, magic, sun, car, road, sky, wind, rain, weather, animal, affect, pleasure, slowness, driver"><br />
<poem><br />
Lockerbie Street is a little street,<br />
Just one block long;<br />
But the days go there with a magical air,<br />
The whole year long.<br />
The sun in his journey across the sky<br />
Slows his car as he passes by;<br />
The sighing wind and the grieving rain<br />
Change their tune and cease to complain;<br />
And the birds have a wonderful call that seems<br />
Like a street-cry out of the land of dreams;<br />
For there the real and the make-believe meet.<br />
Time does not hurry in Lockerbie Street.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="street, night, moonlight, magic, metaphor, sublime"><br />
<poem><br />
Lockerbie Street is a little street,<br />
Only one block long;<br />
But the moonlight there is strange and fair<br />
All the year long,<br />
As ever it was in old romance,<br />
When fairies would sing and fauns would dance,<br />
Proving this earth is subject still<br />
To a blithesome wonder-working Will,<br />
Spreading beauty over the land,<br />
That every beholder may understand<br />
How glory shines round the Mercy-seat.<br />
That is the gospel of Lockerbie Street.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="street, affect, metaphor, town, pedestrian"><br />
<poem><br />
Lockerbie Street is a little street,<br />
Only one block long,<br />
A little apart, yet near the heart<br />
Of the city's throng.<br />
If you are a stranger looking to find<br />
Respite and cheer for soul and mind,<br />
And have lost your way, and would inquire<br />
For a street that will lead to Heart's Desire,—<br />
To a place where the spirit is never old,<br />
And gladness and love are worth more than gold, —<br />
Ask the first boy or girl you meet!<br />
Everyone knows where is Lockerbie Street.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="street, affect, pleasure, metaphor, road, navigation"><br />
<poem><br />
Lockerbie Street is a little street,<br />
Only one block long;<br />
But never a street in all the world,<br />
In story or song,<br />
Is better beloved by old and young;<br />
For there a poet has lived and sung,<br />
Wise as an angel, glad as a bird,<br />
Fearless and fond in every word,<br />
Many a year. And if you would know<br />
The secret of joy and the cure of woe,—<br />
How to be gentle and brave and sweet,—<br />
Ask your way to Lockerbie Street.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=From_an_Automobile&diff=905From an Automobile2026-04-09T11:20:40Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="MacKaye, Percy"<br />
year_of_publication="1910"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
journal="Scribner’s Magazine"<br />
page_range="114"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/urielotherpoems00mack/page/32/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="pleasure, topography, sound, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
Fluid the world flowed under us: the hills,<br />
:: Billow on billow of umbrageous green,<br />
:: Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen<br />
One rapturous instant, blind with dash of rills<br />
And silver rising storms and dewy stills<br />
:: Of dripping boulders, then the dim ravine<br />
:: Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene<br />
Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="intertext, sound, animal"><br />
<poem><br />
Then all of nature’s old amazement<br />
:: Sudden to ask us: "Is this also Man?<br />
:: This plunging, volant land-amphibian—<br />
What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed?<br />
:: Reply!" And piercing us with ancient scan,<br />
The shrill primeval hawk gazed and screamed.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Florida_Road_Workers&diff=904Florida Road Workers2026-04-09T11:14:20Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Hughes, Langston" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedpoemsof00hugh/page/158/mode/2up?ref=ol" year_of_publication="1927" genre="Poetry" publisher="Alfred A. Knopf Inc." journal="Langston Hughes: Poems" page_range="158-159"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="infrastructure, class"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Hey, Buddy! <br />
Look at me!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="construction, road, speed, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
I'm makin' a road <br />
For the cars to fly by on, <br />
Makin' a road <br />
Through the palmetto thicket <br />
For light and civilization <br />
To travel on.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="construction, car, road"><br />
<poem><br />
I'm makin' a road <br />
For the rich to sweep over <br />
In their big cars <br />
And leave me standin' here.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, road"><br />
<poem><br />
Sure, <br />
A road helps everybody. <br />
Rich folks ride — <br />
And I get to see 'em ride. <br />
I ain't never seen nobody <br />
Ride so fine before.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Hey, Buddy, look! <br />
I'm makin' a road!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Baby&diff=903Baby2026-04-09T11:13:15Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Hughes, Langston" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedpoemsof00hugh/page/120/mode/2up?ref=ol" year_of_publication="pre 1930" genre="Poetry" publisher="Vintage Classics" journal="The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes" page_range="120"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, car, truck, accident, death, risk, traffic"><br />
<poem><br />
Albert! <br />
Hey, Albert!<br />
Don't you play in dat road. <br />
::You see dem trucks <br />
::A-goin' by. <br />
::One run ovah you <br />
::An' you die. <br />
Albert, don't you play in dat road.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Driving_Up_the_Sacramento&diff=902Driving Up the Sacramento2026-04-09T09:31:05Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Birney, Earle" year_of_publication="1928" genre="Poetry" publisher="McClelland Steward" journal="The Collected Poems of Earle Birney" page_range="37-39" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedpoemsof0000birn/page/38/mode/2up" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
& you as remote now as that range<br />
radiating heat not holding it<br />
the buttes rainstormed but instant dryers<br />
i remember you like opera<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="hitchiker, sound, affect, car part, metaphor, Northwest, passenger, scenery, season, spring, plant, agriculture, desert, topography"><br />
<poem><br />
ive a hitchhiker but he wont talk<br />
i keep radioing words to you<br />
but what to say you’d really like?<br />
o luvalee the peach & almond petals? sure<br />
but it’s too late in the spring now dear tease<br />
ive left ploughed earth & the green ricefields behind<br />
revved thru towns with dusty palms<br />
yes damn you im up thru spidery almonds<br />
no more wine & oranges<br />
into hot canyons between bare yellow<br />
breasts of hill &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; something vulgar<br />
about the landscape as well as me<br />
or is it just this jalopy’s had it?<br />
my conrods clank<br />
the rad’s jerked off again<br />
will i ever make vancouver?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="hitchhiker, car model, garage, infrastructure, car part, maintenance, passenger"><br />
<poem><br />
my hitch decided no<br />
got out at the last crossroad<br />
& just passed<br />
waving from a new studebaker<br />
at me leaning against this robbers-roost garage<br />
with time to telepath you something<br />
while they screw in a new pump i dont need<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="northwest, taste, tree, sky, river, religion, plant, scenery"><br />
<poem><br />
well what’s to say? &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; the view looks edible<br />
peppered with black oaks<br />
white barns for salt &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; a saffron sunset<br />
“there you go being physical again”<br />
i can hear you &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; well why not?<br />
this goddamn sky’s one big red cherry now<br />
& the sacramento’s a hairy crack<br />
between the white thighs of the liveoaks<br />
& by geez if there aint a rock-prick<br />
a-purplin up in all this stagey Eden<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="metaphor, technology"><br />
<poem><br />
but you’re not on my wavelength<br />
& now the crate’s cooled<br />
we'll sign off &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; head on north<br />
you said you hoped to see more of me in the fall<br />
but will we ever fall together?<br />
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; that would be really operatic.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=She_being_Brand&diff=901She being Brand2026-04-09T09:28:26Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Cummings, Edward Estline" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/bwb_KS-426-042/page/248/mode/2up" year_of_publication="1926" genre="Poetry" publisher="Liveright" journal="E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962" page_range="246"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="technology, pleasure, gender, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="personification, gender"><br />
<poem><br />
she being Brand<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
-new;and you<br />
know consequently a<br />
little stiff i was<br />
careful of her and(having<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, haptic, gender, maintenance, oil"><br />
<poem><br />
thoroughly oiled the universal<br />
joint tested my gas felt of<br />
her radiator made sure her springs were O.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, car, car part, metaphor, sound"><br />
<poem><br />
K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, driver, driving skill, car part, gender, haptic, agency, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
up,slipped the<br />
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she<br />
kicked what<br />
the hell)next<br />
minute i was back in neutral tried and<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="slowness, driving"><br />
<poem><br />
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. &nbsp; &nbsp; ing(my<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, driving, engine, oil, gender, metaphor, haptic, driving, pleasure, sublime"><br />
<poem><br />
lev-er Right-<br />
oh and her gears being in<br />
A 1 shape passed<br />
from low through<br />
second-in-to-high like<br />
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, road, speed"><br />
<poem><br />
avenue i touched the accelerator and give<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="gasoline"><br />
<poem><br />
her the juice,good<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::::::(it<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, gender, haptic, affect, pleasure, urban"><br />
<poem><br />
was the first ride and believe i we was<br />
happy to see how nice she acted right up to<br />
the last minute coming back down by the Public<br />
Gardens i slammed on<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, personification, driving, engine, speed, death"><br />
<poem><br />
the<br />
internalexpanding<br />
&<br />
externalcontracting<br />
brakes Bothatonce and<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
brought allofher tremB<br />
-ling<br />
to a:dead.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="slowness, stop, parking"><br />
<poem><br />
stand-<br />
&semi;Still)<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Night_Fire&diff=900The Night Fire2026-04-09T09:08:42Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="McKay, Claude"<br />
year_of_publication="1922"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Harcourt, Brace and Company"<br />
journal="Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay"<br />
page_range="55"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/HarlemShadows/page/n83/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="engine, night, death"><br />
<poem><br />
No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,<br />
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;<br />
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,<br />
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.<br />
The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls,<br />
And the big building bends and twists and groans.<br />
A bar drops from its place; a rafter falls<br />
Burning the flowers. The wind in frenzy moans.<br />
The watchers gaze, held wondering by the fire,<br />
The dwellers cry their sorrow to the crowd,<br />
The flames beyond themselves rise higher, higher,<br />
To lose their glory in the frowning cloud,<br />
Yielding at length the last reluctant breath.<br />
And where life lay asleep broods darkly death.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Papine_Corner&diff=899Papine Corner2026-04-09T09:06:25Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="McKay, Claude"<br />
year_of_publication="1912"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="London Watts & Co."<br />
journal="Constab Ballads"<br />
page_range="40-42"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/constabballads00mckarich/page/40/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
When you want to meet a frien',<br />
::: Ride up to Papine,<br />
Where dere's people to no en',<br />
::: Old, young, fat an' lean:<br />
When you want nice gals fe court<br />
::: An' to feel jus' booze',<br />
Go'p to Papine as a sport<br />
::: Dress' in ge'man clo'es.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car"><br />
<poem><br />
When you want to be jus' broke,<br />
::: Ride up wid your chum,<br />
Buy de best cigars to smoke<br />
::: An' Finzi old rum:<br />
Stagger roun' de sort o' square<br />
::: On to Fong Kin bar ;<br />
Keep as much strengt' dat can bear<br />
::: You do'n in de car.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="night"><br />
<poem><br />
When you want know Sunday bright,<br />
::: Tek a run up deh<br />
When 'bout eight o'clock at night<br />
::: Things are extra gay :<br />
Ef you want to see it cram',<br />
::: Wait tell night is dark,<br />
An' beneat' your breat' you'll damn<br />
::: Coney Island Park.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
When you want see gals look fine,<br />
::: You mus' go up dere,<br />
An' you'll see them drinkin' wine<br />
::: An' all sorts o' beer :<br />
There you'll see them walkin' out,<br />
::: Each wid a young man,<br />
Watch them strollin' all about,<br />
::: Flirtin' all dem can.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
When you want hear coarsest jokes<br />
::: Passin' rude an' vile,<br />
Want to see de Kingston blokes,—<br />
::: Go up dere awhile:<br />
When you want hear murderin'<br />
::: On de piano,<br />
An' all sorts o' drunken din,<br />
::: Papine you mus' go.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Ef you want lost póliceman,<br />
::: Go dere Sunday night,<br />
Where you'll see them, every one<br />
::: Lookin' smart an' bright :<br />
Policeman of every rank,<br />
::: Rural ones an' all,<br />
In de bar or on de bank,<br />
::: Each one in them sall.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Policeman dat's in his beat,<br />
::: Policeman widout,<br />
Policeman wid him gold teet'<br />
::: Shinin' in him mout';<br />
Policeman in uniform<br />
::: Made of English blue,<br />
P'liceman gettin' rather warm,<br />
::: Sleuth policeman too.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Policeman on plain clo'es pass,<br />
::: Also dismissed ones;<br />
See them standin' in a mass,<br />
::: Talkin' 'bout them plans:<br />
Policeman "struck off de strengt'<br />
::: Physical unfit,"<br />
Hear them chattin' dere at lengt'<br />
::: 'Bout a diffran' kit.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
When you want meet a surprise,<br />
::: Tek de Papine track;<br />
Dere some things will meet you' eyes<br />
::: Mek you tu'n you' bac:<br />
When you want to see mankind<br />
::: Of "class "family<br />
In a way degra' them mind,<br />
::: Go 'p deh, you will see.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road condition, affect, train"><br />
<poem><br />
When you want a pleasant drive,<br />
::: Tek Hope Gardens line;<br />
I can tell you, man alive,<br />
::: It is jolly fine:<br />
Ef you want to feel de fun,<br />
::: You mus' only wait<br />
Until when you're comin' do'n<br />
::: An' de tram is late.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Knutsford_Park_Races&diff=898Knutsford Park Races2026-04-09T09:04:28Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="McKay, Claude"<br />
year_of_publication="1912"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Watts & Co."<br />
journal="Constab Ballads"<br />
page_range="59-61"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/constabballads00mckarich/page/58/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car"><br />
<poem><br />
Batch o' p'licemen, lookin' fine,<br />
Tramp away to de car line;<br />
No more pólicemen can be<br />
Smart as those from Half Way Tree:<br />
Happy, all have happy faces,<br />
For 'tis Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
No room in de tram fe stan':<br />
"Oh! de races will be gran',&mdash;<br />
Wonder ef good luck we'll hab,<br />
Get fe win a couple bob!"<br />
Joyous, only joyous faces,<br />
Goin' to de Knutsford races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, exhaust, pollution"><br />
<poem><br />
Motor buggy passin' by,<br />
Sendin' dus' up to de sky;<br />
P'licemen, posted diffran' place,<br />
Buy dem ticket on de race:<br />
Look now for de anxious faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Big-tree boys a t'row dem dice:<br />
"P'lice te-day no ha' no v'ice,&mdash;<br />
All like we, so dem caan' mell,&mdash;<br />
Mek we gamble laka hell”:<br />
Rowdy, rowdy-looking faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Ladies white an' brown an' black,<br />
Fine as fine in gala frock,<br />
Wid dem race-card in dem han'<br />
Pass 'long to de dollar stan':<br />
Happy-lookin' lady faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Ge'men wid dem smart spy-glass,<br />
Well equip' fe spot dem harse,<br />
Dress' in Yankee-fashion clo'es,<br />
Watch de flag as do'n it goes:<br />
Oh! de eager, eager faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Faces of all types an' kinds,<br />
Faces showin' diffran' minds,<br />
Faces from de udder seas&mdash;<br />
Right from de antipodes:<br />
Oh! de many various faces<br />
Seen at Knutsford Park big races!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Jockeys lookin' quite dem bes',<br />
In deir racin' clo'es all dress'<br />
(Judge de feelin's how dem proud)<br />
Show de harses to de crowd:<br />
Now you'll see de knowin' faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Soldier ban', formed in a ring,<br />
Strike up "God save our king";<br />
Gub'nor come now by God's grace<br />
To de Knutsford Park big race:<br />
High faces among low faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="animal"><br />
<poem><br />
Ladies, 'teppin' up quite cool,<br />
Buy dem tickets at de pool;<br />
Dough 'tis said he's got a jerk,<br />
Dere's no harse like Billie Burke:<br />
Look roun' at de cock-sure faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Hey! de flag is gone do'n, oh!<br />
Off at grips de harses go!<br />
Dainty's leadin' at a boun',<br />
Stirrup-cup is gainin' ground':<br />
Strainin', eager strainin' faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Last day o' de race&mdash;all's done,<br />
An' de course is left alone;<br />
Everybody's goin' home,<br />
Some more light dan when dey'd come:<br />
Oh! de sad, de bitter faces<br />
After Knutsford Park big races!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=When_Dawn_Comes_to_the_City&diff=897When Dawn Comes to the City2026-04-09T09:02:32Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="McKay, Claude"<br />
year_of_publication="1920"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="London Grant Richards Ltd"<br />
journal="Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems"<br />
page_range="36-37"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/selectedpoemsofc0000mcka/page/62/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, anthropomorphism, personification, sound, sky, urban"><br />
<poem><br />
The tired cars go grumbling by,<br />
:: The moaning, groaning cars,<br />
:And the old milk carts go rumbling by<br />
:: Under the same dull stars.<br />
:Out of the tenements, cold as stone,<br />
:: Dark figures start for work;<br />
:I watch them sadly shuffle on,<br />
:: ‘Tis dawn, dawn in New York.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::But I would be on the island of the sea,<br />
::In the heart of the island of the sea,<br />
:Where the cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing,<br />
:And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree,<br />
Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing<br />
::Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn,<br />
:And the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing,<br />
And dear old Ned is braying, braying, braying,<br />
And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling<br />
:From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea<br />
That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling<br />
:Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously!<br />
:There, oh there! on the island of the sea<br />
::There I would be at dawn.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="personification, sound, car, urban, sky"><br />
<poem><br />
:The tired cars go grumbling by,<br />
::The crazy, lazy cars,<br />
:And the same milk-carts go rumbling by<br />
::Under the dying stars.<br />
:A lonely newsboy hurries by,<br />
::Humming a recent ditty;<br />
:Red streaks strike through the gray of the sky,<br />
:: The dawn comes to the city.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::But I would be on the island of the sea,<br />
::In the heart of the island of the sea,<br />
:Where the cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing,<br />
:And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree,<br />
Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing<br />
::Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn,<br />
:And the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing,<br />
And dear old Ned is braying, braying, braying,<br />
And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling<br />
:From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea<br />
That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling<br />
:Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously!<br />
:There, oh there! on the island of the sea <br />
::There I would be at dawn.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=On_Broadway&diff=896On Broadway2026-04-09T09:00:57Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="McKay, Claude"<br />
year_of_publication="1920"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Grant Richards Ltd"<br />
journal="Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems"<br />
page_range="18"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/selectedpoemsofc0000mcka/page/66/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="urban"><br />
<poem><br />
About me young and careless feet<br />
Linger along the garish street;<br />
:: Above, a hundred shouting signs<br />
Shed down their bright fantastic glow<br />
:: Upon the merry crowd and lines<br />
Of moving carriages below:<br />
O wonderful is Broadway&mdash;only <br />
My heart, my heart is lonely.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="urban"><br />
<poem><br />
Desire naked, linked with Passion,<br />
Goes strutting by in brazen fashion;<br />
:: From playhouse, cabaret and inn<br />
The rainbow lights of Broadway blaze<br />
:: All gay without, all glad within;<br />
As in a dream I stand and gaze<br />
At Broadway, shining Broadway&mdash;only<br />
My heart, my heart is lonely.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Dawn_in_New_York&diff=895Dawn in New York2026-04-09T08:59:42Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="McKay, Claude"<br />
year_of_publication="1922"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Harcourt, Brace and Company"<br />
journal="Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay"<br />
page_range="43"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/selectedpoemsofc0000mcka/page/64/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="city, urban, car, metaphor, sound, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes<br />
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,<br />
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!<br />
The Dawn! &nbsp; My spirit to its spirit thrills.<br />
Almost the mighty city is asleep,<br />
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.<br />
But here and there a few cars groaning creep<br />
Along, above, and underneath the street,<br />
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,<br />
The women and the men of garish nights,<br />
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,<br />
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.<br />
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.<br />
And I go darkly-rebel to my work.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Poplar&diff=894The Poplar2026-04-09T08:57:44Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Aldington, Richard"<br />
year_of_publication="1915"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Houghton Mifflin Company"<br />
journal="Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology"<br />
page_range="10-11"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/poemsofrichardal0000rich_q3l8/page/30/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="tree"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="river, roadside, temperature"><br />
<poem><br />
Why do you always stand there shivering<br />
Between the white stream and the road?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="dust, bicycle, car, road, scenery"><br />
<poem><br />
The people pass through the dust<br />
On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;<br />
The waggoners go by at dawn;<br />
The lovers walk on the grass path at night.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!<br />
You are more beautiful than they are.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="tree"><br />
<poem><br />
I know that the white wind loves you,<br />
Is always kissing you and turning up<br />
The white lining of your green petticoat.<br />
The sky darts through you like blue rain,<br />
And the grey rain drips on your flanks<br />
And loves you.<br />
And I have seen the moon<br />
Slip his silver penny into your pocket<br />
As you straightened your hair;<br />
And the white mist curling and hesitating<br />
Like a bashful lover about your knees.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="tree, anthropomorphism, road, pedestrian"><br />
<poem><br />
I know you, poplar;<br />
I have watched you since I was ten.<br />
But if you had a little real love,<br />
A little strength,<br />
You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers<br />
And go walking down the white road<br />
Behind the waggoners.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.<br />
Will you always stand there shivering?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Rhapsody_in_a_Third-Class_Carriage&diff=893Rhapsody in a Third-Class Carriage2026-04-09T08:56:17Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Aldington, Richard" year_of_publication="1928" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/poemsofrichardal0000rich_q3l8/page/188/mode/2up" genre="Poetry" journal="" page_range="152"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="traffic, mud, road condition, fog, winter, bicycle, pedestrian, road side, town"><br />
<poem><br />
Deadness of English winter, dreariness,<br />
cold sky over provincial towns, mist.<br />
Melancholy of undulating trams<br />
solitary jangling through muddy streets,<br />
narrowness, imperfection, dullness,<br />
black extinguisher over English towns;<br />
mediocre women in dull clothes—<br />
their nudity a disaster—<br />
heavy cunning men (guts and passbooks),<br />
relics of gentry, workmen on bicycles,<br />
puffy small whores, baby carriages,<br />
shops, newspapers, bets, cinemas, allotments . . .<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, sound, town, train, other mobilities, road, urban"><br />
<poem><br />
These are your blood; their begetters<br />
made in the same bed as yours<br />
(horror of copulation),<br />
colossal promiscuity of flesh through centuries<br />
(seed and cemeteries).<br />
Sculptor! show Mars<br />
bloody in gas-lit abattoirs,<br />
Apollo organist of Saint Mary's,<br />
Venus of High Street, Athena,<br />
worshipped at National schools.<br />
Painter! there are beets in allotments,<br />
embankments, coal-yards, villas, grease,<br />
interpret the music, orchestra,<br />
trams, trains, cars, hobnails, factories—<br />
O poet! chant them to the pianola,<br />
to the metronome in faultless verse . . .<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=R.V._and_Another&diff=892R.V. and Another2026-04-09T08:55:04Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Aldington, Richard" year_of_publication="1928" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/poemsofrichardal0000rich_q3l8/page/60/mode/2up" genre="Poetry" journal="" page_range="52"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, metaphor, affect"><br />
<poem><br />
Vagabonds of beauty,<br />
Wistful, exquisite waifs<br />
From a lost, and a forgotten, and a lovely land,<br />
We cannot comfort you<br />
Though our souls yearn for you.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="city, affect, road, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
You are delicate strangers<br />
In a gloomy town,<br />
Stared at and hated—<br />
Gold crocus blossoms in a drab lane.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, road condition, car, metaphor, affect, plant"><br />
<poem><br />
We cannot comfort you;<br />
Your life is anguish;<br />
All we can do—<br />
Mutely bring pungent herbs and branches of oak<br />
And resinous scented pine wreaths<br />
To hide the crown of thorny pain<br />
Crushing your white frail foreheads.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Dawn&diff=891Dawn2026-04-09T08:53:34Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Aldington, Richard" year_of_publication="1928" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/poemsofrichardal0000rich_q3l8/page/76/mode/2up" genre="Poetry" journal="" page_range="67"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The grim dawn lightens thin bleak clouds;<br />
In the hills beyond the flooded meadows<br />
Lies death-pale, death-still mist.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
We trudge along wearily,<br />
Heavy with lack of sleep,<br />
Spiritless, yet with pretence of gaiety.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The sun brings crimson to the colourless sky;<br />
Light shines from brass and steel;<br />
We trudge on wearily—<br />
Our unspoken prayer:<br />
"God, end this black and aching anguish<br />
Soon, with vivid crimson agonies of death,<br />
End it in mist-pale sleep."<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Watershed&diff=890The Watershed2026-04-09T08:47:14Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Auden, Wystan Hugh" year_of_publication="1927" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedshorter0000aude_l1x9/page/22/mode/2up?q=watershed" genre="Poetry" journal="W. H. Auden" publisher="Faber and Faber" page_range="3"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, forest, road condition, engine, personification, risk, safety, death, winter, storm"><br />
<poem><br />
Who stands, the crux left of the watershed,<br />
On the wet road between the chafing grass<br />
Below him sees dismantled washing-floors,<br />
Snatches of tramline running to the wood,<br />
An industry already comatose,<br />
Yet sparsely living. A ramshackle engine<br />
At Cashwell raises water; for ten years<br />
It lay in flooded workings until this,<br />
Its latter office, grudgingly performed.<br />
And further here and there, though many dead<br />
Lie under the poor soil, some acts are chosen<br />
Taken from recent winters; two there were<br />
Cleaned out a damaged shaft by hand, clutching<br />
The winch the gale would tear them from; one died<br />
During a storm, the fells impassable,<br />
Not at his village, but in wooden shape<br />
Through long abandoned levels nosed his way<br />
And in his final valley went to ground.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="affect, risk, car, metaphor, wind, ocean, tree, spring, sound, safety"><br />
<poem><br />
Go home, now, stranger, proud of your young stock,<br />
Stranger, turn back again, frustrate and vexed:<br />
This land, cut off, will not communicate,<br />
Be no accessory content to one<br />
Aimless for faces rather there than here.<br />
Beams from your car may cross a bedroom wall,<br />
They wake no sleeper; you may hear the wind<br />
Arriving driven from the ignorant sea<br />
To hurt itself on pane, on bark of elm<br />
Where sap unbaffled rises, being Spring;<br />
But seldom this. Near you, taller than grass,<br />
Ears poise before decision, scenting danger.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=From_the_very_first_coming_down&diff=889From the very first coming down2026-04-09T08:44:31Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Auden, Wystan Hugh" year_of_publication="1928" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedshorter0000aude_l1x9/page/18/mode/2up" genre="Poetry" journal="" page_range="39"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, animal, storm, season, other mobilities, car, affect, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
From the very first coming down <br />
Into a new valley with a frown <br />
Because of the sun and a lost way, <br />
You certainly remain: to-day <br />
I, crouching behind a sheep-pen, heard <br />
Travel across a sudden bird, <br />
Cry out against the storm, and found <br />
The year’s arc a completed round <br />
And love’s worn circuit re-begun, <br />
Endless with no dissenting turn. <br />
Shall see, shall pass, as we have seen <br />
The swallow on the tile, spring’s green <br />
Preliminary shiver, passed <br />
A solitary truck, the last <br />
Of shunting in the Autumn. But now <br />
To interrupt the homely brow, <br />
Thought warmed to evening through and through <br />
Your letter comes, speaking as you, <br />
Speaking of much but not to come.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
Nor speech is close nor fingers numb, <br />
If love not seldom has received <br />
An unjust answer, was deceived. <br />
I, decent with the seasons, move <br />
Different or with a different love, <br />
Nor question overmuch the nod, <br />
The stone smile of this country god <br />
That never was more reticent, <br />
Always afraid to say more than it meant.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Between_Attention_and_Attention&diff=888Between Attention and Attention2026-04-09T08:39:44Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Auden, Wystan Hugh" year_of_publication="1928" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/collectedshorter0000aude_l1x9/page/26/mode/2up" genre="Poetry" journal="" page_range="40-41"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="traffic, train, metaphor"><br />
<poem><br />
Between attention and attention<br />
The first and last decision <br />
Is mortal distraction <br />
Of earth and air,<br />
Further and nearer, <br />
The vague wants <br />
Of days and nights, <br />
And personal error; <br />
And the fatigued face. <br />
Taking the strain <br />
Of the horizontal force <br />
And the vertical thrust, <br />
Makes random answer<br />
To the crucial test; <br />
The uncertain flesh <br />
Scraping back chair <br />
For the wrong train, <br />
Falling in slush, <br />
Before a friend’s friends <br />
Or shaking hands <br />
With a snub-nosed winner. <br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="town, car, car part, driver, metaphor, metaphysics, personification"><br />
<poem><br />
The opening window, closing door, <br />
Open, close, but not <br />
To finish or restore; <br />
These wishes get <br />
No further than <br />
The edges of the town, <br />
And leaning asking from the car <br />
Cannot tell us where we are; <br />
While the divided face<br />
Has no grace, <br />
No discretion,<br />
No occupation <br />
But registering <br />
Acreage, mileage, <br />
The easy knowledge <br />
Of the virtuous thing.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Roads&diff=887Roads2026-04-09T08:23:54Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Lowell, Amy" year_of_publication="1922" genre="Poetry" publisher="Houghton Mifflin Company" journal="A Dome of Many-Colored Glass" page_range="53-55" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/trent_0116301750257/page/10/mode/2up?q=%22roads%22" ></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords="ode"><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="road, agency, personification, river, hill, scenery, metaphor, music, sound, smell, sublime, tree, wind, summer"><br />
<poem><br />
I know a country laced with roads,<br />
::: They join the hills and they span the brooks,<br />
They weave like a shuttle between broad fields,<br />
::: And slide discreetly through hidden nooks.<br />
They are canopied like a Persian dome<br />
::: And carpeted with orient dyes.<br />
They are myriad-voiced, and musical,<br />
::: And scented with happiest memories.<br />
O Winding roads that I know so well,<br />
::: Every twist and turn, every hollow and hill!<br />
They are set in my heart to a pulsing tune<br />
::: Gay as a honey-bee humming in June.<br />
‘T is the rhythmic beat of a horse's feet<br />
::: And the pattering paws of a sheep-dog bitch;<br />
‘T is the creaking trees, and the singing breeze,<br />
::: And the rustle of leaves in the road-side ditch.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="animal, sky, sound, music, fall, road, sky, sunshine, topography"><br />
<poem><br />
A cow in a meadow shakes her bell<br />
::: And the notes cut sharp through the autumn air,<br />
Each chattering brook bears a fleet of leaves<br />
::: Their cargo the rainbow, and just now where<br />
::: The sun splashed bright on the road ahead<br />
A startled rabbit quivered and fled.<br />
::: O Uphill roads and roads that dip down!<br />
You curl your sun-spattered length along,<br />
::: And your march is beaten into a song<br />
By the softly ringing hoofs of a horse<br />
::: And the panting breath of the dogs I love.<br />
The pageant of Autumn follows its course<br />
::: And the blue sky of Autumn laughs above.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="music, pleasure, affect, sound, animal, road, highway"><br />
<poem><br />
And the song and the country become as one,<br />
::: I see it as music, I hear it as light;<br />
Prismatic and shimmering, trembling to tone,<br />
::: The land of desire, my soul's delight.<br />
And always it beats in my listening ears<br />
::: With the gentle thud of a horse's stride,<br />
With the swift-falling steps of many dogs,<br />
::: Following, following at my side.<br />
O Roads that journey to fairyland!<br />
::: Radiant highways whose vistas gleam,<br />
Leading me on, under crimson leaves,<br />
::: To the opaline gates of the Castles of Dream.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=A_South_Carolina_Forest&diff=886A South Carolina Forest2026-04-09T08:21:51Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Lowell, Amy" year_of_publication="1927" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/trent_0116301750257/page/570/mode/2up?q=%22south+carolina+forest%22" genre="Poetry" journal="Ballads for Sale" publisher="Houghton Mifflin Company" page_range="199-200"></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="forest, tree, car, car part, driving, speed, risk, road condition, death, smell, vision, haptic, personification, metaphor, intertext"><br />
<poem><br />
Hush, hush, these woods are thick with shapes and voices,<br />
They crowd behind, in front, <br />
Scarcely can one’s wheels break through them. <br />
For God’s sake, drive quickly! <br />
There are butchered victims behind those trees, <br />
And what you say is moss I know is the dead hair of hanged men. <br />
Drive faster, faster.<br />
The hair will catch in our wheels and clog them;<br />
We are thrown from side to side by the dead bodies in the road,<br />
Do you not smell the reek of them, <br />
And see the jaundiced film that hides the stars?<br />
Stand on the accelerator. I would rather be bumped to a jelly<br />
Than caught by clutching hands I cannot see, <br />
Than be stifled by the press of mouths I cannot feel. <br />
Not in the light glare, you fool, but on either side of it. <br />
Curse these swift, running trees, <br />
Hurl them aside, leap them, crush them down, <br />
Say prayers if you like, <br />
Do anything to drown the screaming silence of this forest, <br />
To hide the spinning shapes that jam the trees. <br />
What mystic adventure is this <br />
In which you have engulfed me? <br />
What no-world have you shot us into? <br />
What Dante dream without a farther edge? <br />
Fright kills, they say, and I believe it. <br />
If you would not have murder on your conscience,<br />
For Heaven’s sake, get on!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=The_Comet&diff=885The Comet2026-04-09T08:17:31Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta author="Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt" additional_information="https://archive.org/details/darkwatervoicesf00dubouoft/page/252/mode/2up" genre="Fiction" journal="The Comet" publisher="" year_of_publication="1920" page_range="253-273" other_data=""></meta><br />
<annotations><br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outside the world—"nothing!" as he said bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.<br />
::::"The comet?"<br />
::::"The comet–––"<br />
::::Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled patronizingly at him, and asked:<br />
::::"Well, Jim, are you scared?"<br />
::::"No," said the messenger shortly.<br />
::::"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the junior clerk affably.<br />
::::"Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite a stranger, they say—wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down into the lower vaults today."<br />
The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.<br />
::::"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. Suppose you nose around down there,—it isn't very pleasant, I suppose."<br />
::::"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out.<br />
::::"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said the vault clerk, as<br />
he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the earth, under the world.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault––some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan laid bare its treasure––and he saw the dull sheen of gold!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
"Boom!"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell fainting across the corpse.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! "Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone––with all this money and all these dead men––what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was high-noon––Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car"><br />
<poem><br />
::::In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway like refuse in a can––as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they had crushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend, stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on his lips. The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, silent, and within––but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his uplifted hand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired around the world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." The messenger read and staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her lay––but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way––the terror burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang desperately forward and ran,––ran as only the frightened run, shrieking and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::When he arose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Yesterday, they would not have served me," he whispered, as he forced the food down.<br />
Then he started up the street,––looking, peering, telephoning, ringing alarms; silent,<br />
silent all. Was nobody––nobody––he dared not think the thought and hurried on.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="train, car model, speed, gasoline"><br />
<poem><br />
::::Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have forgotten? He must rush to the subway––then he almost laughed. No––a car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his ears like the voice of God.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Hello––hello––help, in God's name!" wailed the woman. "There's a dead girl in here and a man and––and see yonder dead men lying in the street and dead horses––for the love of<br />
God go and bring the officers–––" And the words trailed off into hysterical tears.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="driving, death"><br />
<poem><br />
::::He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five––rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He was a tall, dark workingman of the better class, with a sensitive face trained to stolidity and a poor man's clothes and hands. His face was soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long banked, but not out.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of God,––and see––––" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay prone in his livery.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks and she clung to his arm until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors racing through her body.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet which I took last night; when I came out––I saw the dead!<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"What has happened?" she cried again.<br />
::::He answered slowly:<br />
::::"Something––comet or devil––swept across the earth this morning and––many are dead!"<br />
::::"Many? Very many?"<br />
::::"I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you."<br />
::::She gasped and they stared at each other.<br />
::::"My––father!" she whispered.<br />
::::"Where is he?"<br />
::::"He started for the office."<br />
::::"Where is it?"<br />
::::"In the Metropolitan Tower."<br />
::::"Leave a note for him here and come."<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car model, skill"><br />
<poem><br />
::::Then he stopped.<br />
::::"No," he said firmly––"first, we must go––to Harlem."<br />
::::"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely down the steps.<br />
::::"There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said.<br />
::::"I don't know how to drive it," he said.<br />
::::"I do," she answered.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="speed"><br />
<poem><br />
::::In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two wheels and slipped with a shriek into l35th.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She did not look, but said:<br />
::::"You have lost––somebody?"<br />
::::"I have lost––everybody," he said, simply––" unless––––"<br />
::::He ran back and was gone several minutes––hours they seemed to her.<br />
::::"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="speed"><br />
<poem><br />
::::"I'm afraid I was selfish," he said. But already the car was moving toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem––the brown, still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the silence––the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator boy aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and addressed but unsent:<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car model, pleasure"><br />
<poem><br />
Dear Daughter:<br />
::::I've gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes. Shall not be back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me.<br />
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::J. B. H.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city."<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="speed"><br />
<poem><br />
::::Up and down, over and across, back again––on went that ghostly search. Everywhere was silence and death––death and silence! They hunted from Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the air. An odor––a smell––and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled back helplessly in her seat.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"What can we do?" she cried.<br />
::::It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly.<br />
::::"The long distance telephone––the telegraph and the cable––night rockets and then––flight!"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew his burdens––the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It looked––she beat back the thought––but it looked,––it persisted in looking like––she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Hello!" she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The world must answer. Would the world answer? Was the world––<br />
::::Silence!<br />
::::She had spoken too low.<br />
::::"Hello!" she cried, full-voiced.<br />
::::She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, distinct, loud tones: "Hello––hello––hello!"<br />
::::What was that whirring? Surely––no––was it the click of a receiver?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world––she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty––too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,––with a man alien in blood and culture––unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was awful! She must escape––she must fly; he must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts––<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs––listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley,––silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know––she did not care. She simply leaped and ran––ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets––alone in the city––perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception––of creeping hands behind her back––of silent, moving things she could not see,––of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered:<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, car part"><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Not––that."<br />
::::And he answered slowly: "No––not that!"<br />
::::They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world silent and asleep,––not dead. They moved in quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedhof, above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until––until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked into each other's eyes––he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty––of vast, unspoken things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Do you know the code?" she asked.<br />
::::"I know the call for help––we used it formerly at the bank."<br />
::::She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,––the dark and restless waters––the cold and luring waters, as they called. He stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and said quietly:<br />
::::"The world lies beneath the waters now––may I go?"<br />
::::She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, "No."<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car part, sound, skill, safety, driver"><br />
<poem><br />
::::Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. In her father's office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in her eyes, eating what he served. He watched the city. She watched him. He seemed very human,––very near now.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Have you had to work hard?" she asked softly.<br />
::::“Always," he said.<br />
::::"I have always been idle," she said. "I was rich."<br />
::::"I was poor," he almost echoed.<br />
::::"The rich and the poor are met together," she began, and he finished:<br />
::::"The Lord is the Maker of them all."<br />
::::"Yes," she said slowly; "and how foolish our human distinctions seem––now," looking down to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows.<br />
::::"Yes––I was not––human, yesterday," he said.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::She looked at him. “And your people were not my people," she said; "but today––––" She paused. He was a man,–no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman,—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and–his face. Yet yesterday–– <br />
::::"Death, the leveler!" he muttered.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::“And the revealer," she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, and, scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, vigorous manhood––his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God and great All-Father of the race to be.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star––mystic, wonderful! And from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found her gazing straight at him.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face––eye to eye. Their souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love—it was some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::Slowly, noiselessly, they moved toward each other––the heavens above, the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, "The world is dead."<br />
::::"Long live the––––"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="sound"><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Honk! Honk!" Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="sound, onomatopoeia"><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!" came the mad cry again, and almost from their feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering rocket as it flew.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth.<br />
::::"Clang—crash—clang!"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed to the girl and lifted her to his breast. "My daughter!" he sobbed.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face flushed deeper and deeper crimson.<br />
::::"Julia," he whispered; "my darling, I thought you were gone forever."<br />
::::She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes.<br />
::::"Fred," she murmured, almost vaguely, "is the world––gone?"<br />
::::"Only New York," he answered; "it is terrible––awful! You know,––but you, how did you escape––how have you endured this horror? Are you well? Unharmed?"<br />
::::"Unharmed!" she said.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::“And this man here?" he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to his hip. "Why!" he snarled. "It's––a––nigger––Julia! Has he––has he dared––––"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then dropped her eyes with a sigh.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"He has dared––all, to rescue me," she said quietly, "and I––thank him––much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Here, my good fellow," he said, thrusting the money into the man's hands, "take that,––what's your name?"<br />
::::"Jim Davis," came the answer, hollow-voiced.<br />
::::"Well, Jim, I thank you. I've always liked your people. If you ever want a job, call on me."<br />
And they were gone.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering.<br />
::::"Who was it?"<br />
::::“Are they alive?"<br />
::::"How many?"<br />
::::"Two!"<br />
::::"Who was saved?"<br />
::::“A white girl and a nigger––there she goes."<br />
::::“A nigger? Where is he? Let's lynch the damned––—"<br />
::::"Shut up––he's all right––he saved her."<br />
::::"Saved hell! He had no business––––"<br />
::::"Here he comes."<br />
::::Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with the eyes of those that walk and sleep.<br />
::::"Well, what do you think of that?" cried a bystander; "of all New York, just a white girl and a nigger!"<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby's filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
::::"Jim!"<br />
::::He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Clean_Curtains&diff=884Clean Curtains2026-04-08T22:14:55Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Sandburg, Carl"<br />
year_of_publication="1920"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Harcourt, Brace and Howe"<br />
journal="Smoke and Steel"<br />
page_range="41"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/bwb_W9-CMK-190/page/40/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
New neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nun's bonnet.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard cartons.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, truck, car part, pollution, dust"><br />
<poem><br />
The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the ways loose and the wheels whirled dust&mdash;there was dust of hoof and wagon wheel and rubber tire&mdash; dust of police and fire wagons&mdash;dust of the winds that circled at midnights and noon listening to no prayers.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
"O mother, I know the heart of you," I sang passing the rim of a nun's bonnet&mdash;O white curtains&mdash;and people clean as the prayers of Jesus here in the faded ramshackle at Congress and Green.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, truck, car part, dust, pollution, wind, sound"><br />
<poem><br />
Dust and the thundering trucks won&mdash;the barrages of the street wheels and the lawless wind took their way&mdash;was it five weeks or six the little mother, the new neighbors, battled and then took away the white prayers in the windows?<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeiferhttps://wiki.uni-konstanz.de/offroad/index.php?title=Wars&diff=883Wars2026-04-08T22:13:14Z<p>Luisa.pfeifer: </p>
<hr />
<div><meta<br />
author="Sandburg, Carl"<br />
year_of_publication="1916"<br />
genre="Poetry"<br />
publisher="Henry Holt and Company"<br />
journal="Chicago Poems"<br />
page_range="96"<br />
additional_information="https://archive.org/details/bwb_P9-AUT-672/page/96/mode/2up"<br />
/><br />
<annotations><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords="car, car part, engine, risk, sound, technology"><br />
<poem><br />
In the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet.<br />
In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.<br />
In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
In the old wars clutches of short swords and jabs into faces with spears.<br />
In the new wars long range guns and smashed walls, guns running a spit of metal and men falling in tens and twenties.<br />
In the wars to come new silent deaths, new silent hurlers not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
<br />
<paragraph keywords=""><br />
<poem><br />
In the old wars kings quarreling and thousands of men following.<br />
In the new wars kings quarreling and millions of men following.<br />
In the wars to come kings kicked under the dust and millions of men following great causes not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.<br />
</poem><br />
</paragraph><br />
<br />
</annotations></div>Luisa.pfeifer