Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
This is a property of type Text.
C
<div class="poem">
<p>Before leaving, our host took me out and showed me a rocky knoll that he said in early mining days would be covered with rattlesnakes that came out to sun themselves, and the glitter of their bodies could be seen a long distance as the sun shone on them. One miner began shooting them and saving their rattles, until he was able to send a peck of them to Tiffany's in New York.
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T
<div class="poem">
<p>Behold the dragon's covey—amphibian, ubiquitous<br />
To hedge the seaboard, wrap the headland, ride<br />
The blue's cloud-templed districts unto ether...<br />
While Iliads glimmer through eyes raised in pride<br />
Hell's belt springs wider into heaven's plumed side.<br />
O bright circumferences, heights employed to fly<br />
War's fiery kennel masked in downy offings,—<br />
This tournament of space, the threshed and chiselled height,<br />
Is baited by marauding circles, bludgeon flail<br />
Of rancorous grenades whose screaming petals carve us<br />
Wounds that we wrap with theorems sharp as hail!
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A
<div class="poem">
<p>Bend low, impenetrable sky––<br />
Through your shades my road runs high:<br />
It needs no stars to guide––<br />
No measuring sea-tide.
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O
<div class="poem">
<p>Besides all this, the club deserves much credit for the advanced position of California in highway improvement. It has done much to create the public sentiment which made the bond issues possible and it has rendered valuable assistance in surveying and building the new roads. It has kept in constant touch with the State Highway Commission and its superior knowledge of the best and shortest routes has been of great service in locating the new state roads.
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B
<div class="poem">
<p>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.
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<div class="poem">
<p>Between the house and barn the gale<br />
Got him by something he had on<br />
And blew him out on the icy crust<br />
That cased the world, and he was gone!
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P
<div class="poem">
<p>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.
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K
<div class="poem">
<p>Big-tree boys a t'row dem dice:<br />
"P'lice te-day no ha' no v'ice,—<br />
All like we, so dem caan' mell,—<br />
Mek we gamble laka hell”:<br />
Rowdy, rowdy-looking faces<br />
At de Knutsford Park big races.
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Q
<div class="poem">
<p>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."
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P
<div class="poem">
<p>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.
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F
<div class="poem">
<p>Brazen hypnotics glitter here;<br />
Glee shifts from foot to foot,<br />
Magnetic to their tremolo.<br />
This crashing opera bouffe,<br />
Blest excursion! this ricochet<br />
From roof to roof—<br />
Know, Olympians, we are breathless<br />
While nigger cupids scour the stars!
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B
<div class="poem">
<p>Brown lived at such a lofty farm<br />
That everyone for miles could see<br />
His lantern when he did his chores<br />
In winter after half-past three.
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<div class="poem">
<p>Brown makes at such an hour of night!<br />
He’s celebrating something strange.<br />
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,<br />
Or been made Master of the Grange.”
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A
<div class="poem">
<p>But a kind providence was with us during the storm, and the lightning kept off. Getting up the Wadsworth sand hill, we cut sage brush and kept piling it up in front of all four wheels to give them something to hold to and prevent slipping and burrowing in the soft sand until the machine was buried to the axles and it became necessary to use block, tackle, and shovels to pull up to the surface. Got to the top at last, but found no improvement in sand conditions. It was the hardest kind of work to make the slightest progress, but at 5:45 in the evening halted at Desert Station, a place inhabited by D. H. Gates, section boss, his wife, Train Dispatcher Howard (his office, cook house, etc., were all combined in a box car which had been set out on a short siding), and a dozen Japanese section hands.
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T
<div class="poem">
<p>But ah, the love of a woman! She will not be cheated!<br />
Up the stoop she went to the vestibule of the house,<br />
And beckoned to me to come to that darkness of doors:<br />
Here in a crevice of the public city the love-hour was spent...
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>But at last the college term neared its close, and the scouts began to make definite preparations for their excursion. Marjorie selected her committee and planned to buy the equipment in Philadelphia, a week or so before the time to start.<br />
She had commissioned John Hadley to order the other automobile—a seven passenger touring car—and had thereby won an invitation for herself and Alice and Lily (the other two members of her committee) to stay with Mrs. Hadley while they were in Philadelphia. Recalling the pleasure and the convenience of a similar visit the preceding summer, when she was buying equipment for the tea-room, she accepted the invitation gratefully for herself and her companions.<br />
“I’m so glad I’m a member of this committee,” remarked Lily as their train pulled into Philadelphia; “so that we will have this week together. For I think it is going to be lots of fun.”<br />
“If it’s anything like last year it will,” returned Marjorie.<br />
“Ah, but remember that we had the boys then to make things lively,” observed Alice.<br />
“Well, we have them now. Aren’t we staying at John’s home—and isn’t my brother Jack working right here in Philadelphia—and ready to help us at any minute? And—” Marjorie glanced slyly at Lily—“I dare say Lil might be able to locate Dick Roberts if we needed him!”<br />
“It’s time to get our gloves on!” was all the reply her jest drew from Lily. “We’re slowing up already.”´
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<div class="poem">
<p>But if Doris thought that the presence of the boys at dinner that evening would put a damper upon the discussion of the project, she was mistaken. The boys, among whom were Jack Wilkinson, John Hadley, and Dick Roberts—all intimate friends of the girls—already knew something of the plans and showed their interest by a succession of questions. John and Dick both looked anything but pleased.<br />
“Why couldn’t you do something in Philadelphia?” asked Dick, sulkily. “We had such a bully time last summer!”<br />
“Why don’t you take a motor trip to the coast?” returned Florence. “Last year we came to you—this year you come with us! Turn about is fair play!”<br />
“Don’t suggest it!” protested Alice, alarmed at the very mention of such a thing. “We’d never earn our cars with the boys following in our trail.”<br />
“People!” exclaimed Marjorie, suddenly struck by an inspiration. “I know something fine! It has just occurred to me that Mae lives in a town on the Lincoln Highway—the way we will undoubtedly go to the coast. And she has urged us all to visit her—so couldn’t we stop on our way out, and maybe you boys join us for a week-end?”<br />
“Where does she live?” asked Jack, doubtfully. He was not sure of being able to get away from the office whenever he desired.<br />
“Lima—in Ohio,” replied Doris. “It isn’t awfully far.”<br />
“But would it be right for a big crowd like this to descend upon her all at once?” inquired Daisy.<br />
“Mae wouldn’t mind,” Doris hastened to assure her. “You know she has a rather large house—and two servants—for Tom Melville has plenty of this world’s goods. In fact, I think she may be a little lonely, and would be overjoyed to see you.”<br />
“Then that settles it!” cried Marjorie. “I’ll write tomorrow and invite ourselves.”<br />
“But how do you know when to set the date for?” asked Florence.<br />
“We’ll have to work it all out by mathematics,” replied the latter. “There’s a lot of planning to be done, and equipment to be bought. We’ll have to name a committee.”<br />
“I propose you as chairman,” said Lily, immediately. “Because you’re our lieutenant—and you can pick your own committee.”<br />
“I second that motion!” exclaimed Ethel.
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</div>
C
<div class="poem">
<p>But let us not fool ourselves:<br />
This civilization is mostly varnish very thinly laid on...<br />
Take any newspaper any morning: scan through it...<br />
Rape, murder, villany, and picking and stealing:<br />
The mob that tore a negro to pieces, the men that ravished a young girl:<br />
The safe-blowing gang and the fat cowardly promoter who stole people’s savings...<br />
Just scan it through: this news of civilization...
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S
<div class="poem">
<p>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.
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W
<div class="poem">
<p>But married life will have its flaws,<br />
Till states alike have divorce laws.<br />
They’ve got to come to save the home,<br />
Or things will be just like Old Rome.
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