J, G. DALTON. 
 
a Cornell University 
 y Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022459501 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 595.C9D15 1885 
 
 3 1924 022 459 501 
 
F5 
 
LYRA BICYCLICA: 
 
 SIXTY POETS ON THE IVHEEL. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH g; dalton. 
 
 Eripuit musEe ignem, carmenque canenti. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED AND IMPROVED. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 E. C. HODGES & CO. 
 
 1885. 
 
Copyright, 1885, 
 By J. G. DALTON. 
 
 ELECTEOTYPED AND PRINTED 
 
 BY RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
Bicyclian bards who sung 
 
 Wheely ideas below. 
 Which always find us young, 
 
 Or always make us so. 
 
 Verse, like a choir of poets in its sound. 
 All on his seat the ratal poemster sings ; 
 
 And while he turns the vivid wheel around. 
 Revolves no sad incertitude of things. 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 The unprecedented peculiarities of most of the 
 verses herein contained seem to be warrant enough 
 for their collection into a volume. Doubtless a new 
 Ars poetica, with a wholly novel subject (thoiigh nar- 
 row), should float a book, if it be not otherwise in- 
 sufferably heavy. 
 
 The author-compiler is one of the very first Bos- 
 tonianswho, in the latter part of thpyear 1877, began 
 to ride and write into notice the bicycle in this 
 country. A few words also seem needful here in 
 explanation of his entering upon the manufacture 
 of this "machine poetry,'' — such in a fuller sense of 
 the term than it ever had before. 
 
 Under the early exhilarating effect of the wiry 
 transit, in a sportive communication to a city paper 
 (the Globe of Jan. 9, '78) he called upon our native 
 poets, naming some in particular, to favor us with a 
 song or two for the new move, declaring that its 
 
VI PREFATORY. 
 
 peculiar charms and potencies deserved and awaited 
 an adequate celebration. Strange to say, no response 
 to this invitation was forthcoming, excepting a brief 
 trifle signed O. W. H. (now on p. 22 of this volume) 
 in the same paper a short time after. Thanks for 
 small favors ; but, in the opinion of the present 
 writer, sustained bursts of panegyrical song were 
 needed to meet the demands of the occasion ! How 
 to get them .' Haying little confidence in his own 
 capacity for poetry, he sought aid through the old 
 proverb about " birds that can sing and won't sing," 
 and soon hit upon the surprising discovery that the 
 meaning of poems can be extracted, and a new 
 one substituted, wjthout injuring the form. So the 
 Chinese will vacuate an egg or an orange of its 
 original contents, fill it with strange confections, 
 and leave no discernible break. In our case the 
 diligent artificer sometimes sees opportunities of im- 
 proving the exterior also. From trying this process 
 upon the two distinguished poets who had neglected 
 his modest request, the writer has developed the 
 Ei-lyrical Method, and extended his scheme of confis 
 cation over a very wide extent of various song. — 
 " Insatiate Bicycler, would not two sufiSce? " says the 
 
PREFATORY. vii 
 
 gentle reader. Not a bit of it : refused a little, he 
 will ravage much. There are, however, quite a num- 
 ber of pieces radically his own, which the proficient 
 reader will easily distinguish. Nearly all have 
 appeared in papers of this city, or in England, and 
 are now revised and improved. 
 
 Mindful of the fate of Marsyas, and that of the 
 dilated frog in the fable, he presents them to the 
 reading public, who should kindly make due allowance 
 for the spirit of youth and the Wheel ; and he dedi- 
 cates them to the gathering host of wheelmen on this 
 continent, with the motto, — 
 
 3Sota non furor brc&t's est. 
 
 October, 1880. 
 
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 This edition contains nearly half as much again as the 
 first, while some of the poorer things are dropped and a 
 few passages in vile taste reformed. All are now dis- 
 tinctly scrumptious, and some are " corkers ; " and there 
 is a larger proportion entirely mine than before. As a 
 collection of parodic and mock-heroic poems on a single 
 topic, it is one of a very few ; the only examples of any 
 note being the " Rejected Addresses " and " Warreniana," 
 an imitation of them. The Bi-lyrical and super-parodic 
 method is here at last applied to all the available 
 material from practically the whole range of poetry. The 
 result, which would have been pronounced quite impos- 
 sible by the best judges, is — for extremes meet — a most 
 original product, and is the first sustained attempt to 
 compel the ardors and music of prime poetry into the 
 service of mirth. It is parody raised to a higher power, 
 the union of fervid and comic. My own weakness made 
 strong by the method, and certain gay angels assisting, 
 I have aspired to set the almost miracular facts of cyclical 
 predominance to song of like quality and exalt the move- 
 ment into a sort of new cult, furnishing the hymns and a 
 ■god complete. 
 
 I have worked this vein for all it is worth, and, regard- 
 less alike of the big-wigs and the little wags, offer the 
 book as an artistic novelty in American humor and a 
 
 3 
 
4 NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 step toward the racy and hardy poetry of the future. My 
 underwriters insure readers' attention. If there is too 
 much of the strut and voice of chanticleer in it — well, 
 that is better than to limp and the timid and doleful notes 
 which are so common. 
 
 The display of Latin (which I only hope is all right) 
 comes not of pedantry, but as the nearest that could be 
 done toward including that language in my plan. 
 
 The incorrect termination as in cycler was too frequent 
 to rectify all in the plates ; it does not occur in the later 
 pieces. 
 
 N.B. In the angelic aid mentioned above, an elderly 
 spirit would speak as in his own person at times, which 
 may cause some doubt as to the actual youth of the 
 writer, who does not care to be quite identified with him, 
 no more than with the one who disports in the Waltese 
 style — being himself truly Juvenis. 
 
 J. G. D. 
 
 January, 1885. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prefatory v 
 
 Note to Second Edition 3 
 
 Prelusions from the Poets ii 
 
 The Harp of Rota 13 
 
 The Over-Cycles 14 
 
 Initial and Celestial Cycling i5 
 
 The Tread- Wheel Song 21 
 
 The Youth and the Bicycle 22 
 
 A Toast 23 
 
 The Wheelless 24 
 
 A Sonnet 25 
 
 My Bicycle 26 
 
 Translations very much translated from Long- 
 fellow : — 
 
 The Celestial Cycler 29 
 
 Song of the Silent Wheei 31 
 
 The Earth hath its Gems 32 
 
 The Wheel 33 
 
 Pegasus in (about 40) Pound 34 
 
 The Ladder of St. Hygeia 36 
 
 The Stilly Wheel 38 
 
 5 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BiCYCLICALISTHENICS 4I 
 
 To THE Rover One 42 
 
 Yankee-Land 43 
 
 Rota et Rotula 45 
 
 Lay of the Pedestrian 46 
 
 The Bicycle 47 
 
 Haste Not, Pause Not 48 
 
 The Steed of Fire 49 
 
 BiSAKEL 51 
 
 Grand Chorus 53 
 
 Owed to the Bicycle 54 
 
 Those Bicycles 55 
 
 Anacreon : Ode XXXIX 56 
 
 RoTAL Poesy 57 
 
 From the Greek 58 
 
 The Dandy Bicycler 59 
 
 Magnaha Cycli 60 
 
 My Mobile Numbers 61 
 
 Little Miss Loquitur 62 
 
 "Music" on the Wire 62 
 
 Rota Anglica \ 64 
 
 The Wheei^Shop 64 
 
 Carmen Bicyclicum 65 
 
 Fleet Wheel 67 
 
 Second Youth 68 
 
 His First Ride 69 
 
 " Mortality " Enlivened 70 
 
CONTENTS. 7 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Song to Bisakel 72 
 
 Where's my John? 73 
 
 Careful Senior's Song 75 
 
 Wheel vs. Horse 78 
 
 CURRENTE BiCYCLO 78 
 
 Rather than Rota 79 
 
 The Pilgrim 80 
 
 The Light of the Stud . . .- 80 
 
 Cyclus Pro Me Preparatus 81 
 
 A Hymnlet 82 
 
 A Pensive Songlet 83 
 
 The Phantom of Delight 83 
 
 In the Running'em Co.'s Salesroom 85 
 
 Hygeia''s Wheel 86 
 
 A Merry Car 88 
 
 Elders, come up 90 
 
 To Middel Ager, Esq '. 91 
 
 Wintry Musings 91 
 
 Adapted Ode 93 
 
 "My Love," a Spoopsy Poem 94 
 
 Rota Felix 96 
 
 " Gondola " made Bicycle . . 96 
 
 Rhymes of the Road 97 
 
 Sonnets by Wheeliam Shakespoke: — 
 
 To Abel Elder 99 
 
 The Reasons Why 100 
 
 To Bisakel 102 
 

 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 His Modern Horse 104 
 
 The Bicycler; a Vagary 105 
 
 Campbell Undone and Outdone . 106 
 
 Alta Canens 
 
 Apology 
 
 Non Assumpsit 109 
 
 ROTALIS EqUITATUS / ICQ 
 
 Life on the Pale Bicycle no 
 
 Rejuvenated T^ . . in 
 
 My Choice 112 
 
 Sonnets after E. B. B u. 
 
 The Wheel's Expression 114 
 
 Roundels after Swinburne: — 
 
 Voice of Wheel uc 
 
 In Parlor uc 
 
 Security 116 
 
 A Question Answered 117 
 
 A Sonnet no 
 
 Sonnets after Foreign Samples: — 
 
 In a Riding Rink 120 
 
 ■ Of Some Roads ; j2o 
 
 A Senior's Intent j2i 
 
 A Rondeau 122 
 
 In "Trinity" Square, 1878 12^ 
 
 Urbs Bicycuca j2. 
 
 Rota Musis Amica ,~. 
 
 A Modest Ascription J2c 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Son of Hygeia . 126 
 
 A Lamentation 127 
 
 " Xtraoi^dinary " 128 
 
 a songlet 129 
 
 "Horse Sense" 130 
 
 Unsatisfied 131 
 
 Are You Ready? 132 
 
 Post Rotam Arnica 132 
 
 Wheel and the Year 133 
 
 Wheely Thoughts and Ejaculations: — 
 
 The Final Meet 134 
 
 The Upward Gravitation 137 
 
 Molliter Ambulans 139 
 
 Pensive in a Boneyard 140 
 
 Equites Rotarum 141 
 
 Tyro's Soliloquy 141 
 
 Poem of the Ride 142 
 
 Chanting the Round Mirific 149 
 
 A Duet 154 
 
 Ego, Private and Posthumous 155 
 
 To THE " PoEMSTER " 1 56 
 
 To a Certain Parodist 157 
 
 Closing Hymn 158 
 
PRELUSIONS FROM THE POETS. 
 
 In seipso totus teres atque rotundus. 
 
 Horace. 
 And wondrous was his way, and wondrous was his 
 
 coach. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 Men met each other with erected look, 
 The steps were higher that they took. 
 
 Dryden. 
 By ceaseless action all that is subsists. 
 Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel, 
 That Nature rides upon, maintains her health, 
 Her beauty, her fertility. She knows 
 No instant's pause, and lives but as she moves. 
 Its own revolvency upholds the world. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 I WAS a grovelling creature once, 
 And basely cleaved to earth. 
 Id. 
 Mighty stage of mortal scenes, 
 Drest with strong and gay machines. 
 
 Watts. 
 I HAVE been 
 On friendly terms with this machine. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 II 
 
12 PRELUSIONS FROM THE POETS. 
 
 What wondrous new machines have late been spinning ! 
 
 Byron. 
 On with the giddy circle, chasing Time. 
 
 Id. 
 In gliding state she wins her easy way, 
 To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. 
 
 Id. 
 Since the time of horse-consuls, now long out of date. 
 No nags ever made such a stir in the state. 
 
 Some fast-going authors of quite a new breed. 
 
 Moore. 
 
 Now proceed. 
 And sing the extension of the iron horse 
 Made by John Taurus with Minerva's aid. 
 And by the safe Cunarder carefully 
 Conveyed unto the Bay State capital. 
 Where charmed starters of its boom did take 
 The city taste. And I, if thou relate 
 The story rightly, will to all declare 
 That largely hath the bounteous god of ride 
 Bestowed on thee the wheely shift of song. 
 
 [From a new Odyssey, B. viii. : Ulysses to the minstrel sage, 
 Demodocus, of the " clear-toned harp."] 
 
LYRA BICYCLICAc 
 
 THE HARP OF ROTA. 
 
 More of a strain than merely my 
 Verse sounds the iron wheel along : 
 
 Caught on the wings of wire to fly 
 Above the pitch of single song, 
 
 Poe, Moore, and Byron tuneful climb, 
 Emerson's native graces play, 
 
 With chanting Whitman rudely prime < 
 And gentle Longman's moral lay. 
 
 William the Great me visited ! 
 
 Drawn to the glimpses of the wheel ; 
 Caesar nor Phoebus had, he said, 
 
 Car fashioned so, " in c6mplete steel." 
 
 13 
 
14 THE OVER-CYCLES. 
 
 Full many more were coaxed to aid ; 
 
 And thus a middling pen, or worse, 
 On lines of classic models made 
 
 Diverted and diverting verse. 
 
 Some bicycles long since had birth 
 Ere Coventry so many named 
 
 And raised new ridings o'er the earth 
 On those gay rollers greatly framed. 
 
 Vain was the brief boneshakers' ride, 
 They had no go-it, and they died. 
 
 In vain they seemed, inane they fled ; 
 They made no poet, and are dead. 
 
 THE OVER-CYCLES. 
 
 BY R. W. E. + D. 
 
 Lo ! New England answers Old. 
 Walker, break this sloth urbane ; 
 A Wheeling voice bids be uprolled 
 Misty gray dreams which thee detain. 
 
THE OVER-CYCLES. IS 
 
 Mark how the climbing cycle-boys 
 
 Beckon thee to all their joys, 
 
 Horsed on a tipsy hoop of steel — 
 
 Pedepulsion on a wheel. 
 
 Youth, by a " mount " make free thy way. 
 
 Teach thy feet to feel the pedal. 
 
 Ere yet arrives the wintry day 
 
 Time with thy feet shall meddle. 
 
 Accept the bounty of the high cycle, 
 
 Taste the lordship of the bicycle. 
 
 Oh, what is the cause metaphysical 
 Past ages have scarce met a bicycle — 
 
 That Menu and Plato, 
 
 And Plutarch and Cato, 
 Should have seldom bestridden the bicycle ? 
 The Sphinx don't know nothing about 'em ; 
 Monadnoc inclineth to doubt 'em ; 
 Bold Caesar went onward without 'em ; 
 
 But how Eze-kiel 
 
 Often plieth " the wheel " ! 
 Have the prophets best ridden the bicycle ? 
 
I6 INITIAL AND CELESTIAL CYCLING. 
 
 INITIAL AND CELESTIAL CYCLING. 
 
 A PARODY-MOSAIC. 
 
 I. 
 
 BiCYCLic knights I often spy, 
 On horse uncarnate riding by ; 
 Nimbly they scale his vaulty back, 
 And spin along the travelled track. 
 I see men go up and down, 
 In the country and the town. 
 Who on two wheels throned sedate 
 Have not hazarded their state : 
 With speedful limbs and agile toes 
 Lusty Juventus circling goes, 
 And Oldster's legs, aware of wane. 
 Revivify and dance again. 
 They are there for benefit ; 
 They are there from drudging quit. 
 And Wisdom journeying on the road 
 Daily stops to view their mode. 
 
 On pedalian pinions fleeting. 
 See them twirl the witching wheel. 
 
INITIAL AND CELESTIAL CYCLING. 17 
 
 Orb-libration's magic beating 
 In the tense and vibrant steel. 
 My soul the mystic carol sings 
 Of those silent circling wings : 
 It is ever the self-same tale, 
 The first experience will not fail ; 
 Only two in the garden walked, 
 And with snake and seraph talked : 
 Cycles only two are twirled. 
 Yet how steadfastly they run, 
 To the cadence of the whirling world 
 That dances round the sun. 
 Unheeded Danger near him strides, 
 He laughs that on bicycle rides. 
 
 I bend my fancy to their leading. 
 All too nimble for my treading ; 
 My metric feet are no account 
 To lift me to their wheely mount. 
 And much revolving in my mind 
 Turns up no chance of seat behind. 
 Keen my sense, my heart was young. 
 Right good-will my sinews strung. 
 But no speed of mine avails 
 To hunt upon their narrow trails ; 
 
1 8 INITIAL AND CELESTIAL CYCLING. 
 
 Fleetest couriers alive, 
 
 Never yet could I arrive. 
 
 Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, 
 
 Though they are not overtaken ; 
 
 On and away, their hasting feet 
 
 Make the morning proud and sweet : 
 
 Bright on the cheeks of gay and staid 
 
 The rose of action burns ; 
 
 Though breeches wear, and coats may fade, 
 
 Immortal youth returns. 
 
 II. 
 The soul regards with equal ken 
 The dancing Pleiads and our frolic men. 
 Bird, that from the nadir's floor 
 To the zenith top can soar, 
 Light rides the arch of night and noon, 
 Bicycling on the sun and moon ; 
 So orbit of the muse exceeds 
 All such as now we erring own. 
 Which seeming firm mechanic steeds. 
 Are shadows flitting up and down. 
 Spirit that lurks such form within 
 Beckons to spirit in the skin ; 
 
INITIAL AND CELESTIAL CYCLING. 19 
 
 Self-kindled every semblance glows, 
 And hints the future which it owes. 
 Hear you then, bicycle fellows. 
 Fits not to be over-zealous ; 
 Steeds not to work on the clean jump, 
 Nor wind nor heart perpetual pump. 
 
 Profounder and higher 
 Man's spirit must drive ; 
 To his aye-rolling orbit 
 No goal will arrive ; 
 The cycles that now draw him 
 With fleetness untold. 
 Once known, — for new cycles 
 He spurneth the old. 
 
 Deep lore lieth under 
 These circlets of time ; 
 They melt in the light of 
 Their meaning sublime. 
 Love works at the axle, 
 Beholdeth the way ; 
 Forth speed the strong pulses 
 To the borders of day. 
 
20 NITIAL AND CELESTIAL CYCLING. 
 
 Loftier rounds, a purer air, 
 
 Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair ; 
 
 Your reach shall yet be more profound, 
 
 And a vista without bound ; 
 
 The axis of the wheels you steer 
 
 Be the axis of the sphere. , 
 
 Upward, higher far. 
 
 Over sun and star, 
 
 Thou must learn to mount, 
 
 Into vision where all form 
 
 In one only form dissolves ; 
 
 In a region where the wheel 
 
 On which all beings ride 
 
 Whizzingly revolves ; 
 
 Where the starred eternal worm 
 
 Girds the world with bound and term. 
 
 Up ! and the dusty race 
 That sat in horse-cars long — 
 Be swift their feet as antelopes, 
 And as steam-engine strong. 
 
THE TREAV-WHEEL SONG. 21 
 
 THE TREAD-WHEEL SONG. 
 
 ADAPTED FROM HOLMES. 
 
 The stars are rolling in the sky, 
 
 The earth rolls on below, 
 And we can feel our twinkling wheel 
 
 Revolving as we go. 
 Then tread away, my gallant boys. 
 
 And make the axle fly ; 
 Why should not we go rotiform, 
 
 Like planets in the sky "i 
 
 Wake up, come up, you walking men, 
 
 And stir your heavy pegs ; 
 Arouse, arise, my gawky friend, 
 
 And ply your spider legs ! 
 What tho' you 're awkward at the first, 
 
 'Most any one can learn — 
 So hold upon the handles, man, 
 
 And take another turn. 
 
 They 've built us up a noble steed 
 To beat the vulgar rout ; 
 
22 I'HE YOUTH AND THE BICYCLE. 
 
 The motion is almost the same 
 
 As just to walk about. 
 You 're seated on horseback afoot, 
 
 To speed your distant ends ; 
 Beside the pleasant rolling round 
 
 Among one's honest friends. 
 
 Mark, fellows, 't is a Traveller, 
 
 And useful work is done, 
 As well as on its spinning wings 
 
 To fly around for fun. 
 You '11 say, when our revolving colt 
 
 You shall have better known, 
 " Now, hang me, but I must have One 
 
 Bicycle of my own ! " 
 
 THE YOUTH AND THE BICYCLE. 
 
 A CERTAIN young man, for his physical. 
 Has. been out and bought him a bicycle ; 
 He is careless and rash, 
 And it 's treating him " hash," 
 This hasty young man on his bicycle. 
 
A TOAST. 23 
 
 Says he, you acephalous bicycle, 
 I shall fling you away for a tricycle, 
 
 Have a tertium quid. 
 
 Or it cannot be rid, 
 Says hasty young man off his bicycle. 
 
 A TOAST. 
 
 HOLMES PLUS D. 
 
 BiBAMUS AD PRIMUM BiCYCLICUM ClUB, 
 
 In urbe eorum cui nomen est " Hub " ; 
 Et floreant, valeant, volitant tam, 
 NoN Pei'rcius ipse enumeret quam. 
 
 Englished, freely. 
 
 Here's luck to the pioneer Bicycle Club, 
 That starts in the place entitled the Hub ; 
 May their growth, example, and circling be such. 
 Not Peirce's own chalk can reckon how much. 
 
 * Initials dropt now, for, used in such a way, Dr. Holmes was angry that 
 
 readers would think, he says, "these rather slipshod rhymes were really 
 
 miiie." But how jileascd h= is at r.ny t.iry for hia vanity "OliveJ 
 
 asliing for more." 
 
24 THE WHEELLESS. 
 
 THE WHEELLESS. 
 
 CLOSELY AFTER HOLMES. 
 
 We count the working heads that rest 
 
 Where the fleet whirling riders beckon, 
 But, on our silent carrier's crest. 
 
 The slow-goers who will stop to reckon ? 
 A few can twirl the magic wire, 
 
 And noiseless wheel is proud to wiri them ; 
 Alas, for those who walk and tire. 
 
 And bide with all their riding in them ! 
 
 Nay, care not f.or the live alone, 
 
 Much song has told their art's glad story ; 
 Wail for the wheelless, who have none — 
 
 No lyric chants pedestrian glory ! 
 And while Arcadian breezes sweep 
 
 O'er Bicycle's mirific flyer, 
 Call where the clattering horse-cars creep. 
 
 To bring your brothers one yard higher : 
 
 " O men that walk, and take car line — 
 Have tightening boot or tortoise horses, 
 
A SONNET. 25 
 
 And Gout going home to cordial wine, 
 
 Slow-dropped from crowding's crushing process ; 
 
 Attend the song and echoing chord, — 
 With over-ridden poets dealing. 
 
 For you the parodies are poured, 
 
 As mad as mirth, as two as wheeling ! "' 
 
 A SONNET. 
 
 BY WOLIVER ENDELL. 
 Incepit Bostonia et cantavit. 
 
 Though home is dear, yet oft we needs must sigh, 
 Longing for what our lifted soles have found 
 To shoot beyond the city's narrow bound. 
 Where slippery stones and bricky sideways lie ; 
 That fair r-ideal form as from the sky. 
 By youth elected and by poets crowned 
 Whose legs sweep circUng in a fervid round 
 Where the urged trotter heeds the loud hi, hi! 
 Frequent to thee our truest hearts return. 
 Great Mover, alma rota, noiseless kind, 
 Whose little saddle a larger home we find ; 
 And still of thee thy wondering pupils learn, 
 While with the flying wires thine ardors bum 
 Where all our wheeliest melodies are designed. 
 
26 My BICYCLE. 
 
 MY BICYCLE. 
 
 BY JAGY TORLTON. 
 He cadgily ranted and sang. — Old Song. 
 
 What spins around " like all git out," 
 
 And swiftly carries me about, — 
 
 So light, so still, so bright and stout ? 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 Regard me now where I sit high on 
 
 Nag, forty pound of mostly iron ; 
 
 And don't you wish that you might try on 
 
 My Bicycle ? 
 
 Monstrum informe, ingens I some 
 Cry, seeing first this courser come. 
 Our " fine knee-action " strikes them dumb, 
 
 My Bicycle ! 
 
 Calling him monster from the east, 
 And both a lean and fatuous beast, 
 You comprehend not in the least 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
MY BICYCLE. 27 
 
 Revolve it in your mind, and my way 
 Will show to be a more than guy way — 
 High way of riding on the highway — 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 Those now who stand and stare and say, 
 O, "parce nobis, s'il vous plait," 
 Will beg to tread, another day, 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 What tho' Hans Breitmann did, almost. 
 And Schnitzerlein gave up the ghost ? 
 'T was all because they could n't boast 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 And saying mine, I do not mean 
 There' are not many others seen 
 Who ride like me on my machine. 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 I 'm not stuck up, tho' seated high ; 
 To ride, at once, and run and fly — 
 My pride is so to travel by 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
28 MV BfCYCLE. 
 
 Who will may head with learning stow, 
 I work the light, ped-antic toe — 
 'T is cyclopedic lore to know 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 And when the saddled arc I span, 
 What care I for the fall of man ? 
 Let him remount ! I always can 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 All the mutations I discern 
 
 Of men and States not me concern. 
 
 While I avoid to overturn 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 See Russia rotten Turkey eat — 
 And John Bull in a stewing heat ; 
 We have a better kind of meet, 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 
 Then hurry spokes and spokesman too, 
 
 We only have an hour or so. 
 
 And almost twenty miles to go. 
 
 My Bicycle. 
 May, 1878. 
 
THE CELESTIAL CYCLER. 29 
 
 TRANSLATIONS VERY MUCH TRANS- 
 LATED FROM LONGFELLOW. 
 
 THE CELESTIAL CYCLER. 
 
 FROM DANTE. 
 
 Scene, Coast near Boston. 
 
 Ant) now, behold ! as at the approach of morning * 
 Through the gross vapors, Sol grows fiery round, 
 Down in the east upon the ocean floor. 
 
 Appeared to me, — I may alway behold it ! — 
 A wheel along the sea, so swiftly coming. 
 Its motion by no flight of wing is equalled. 
 
 And when therefrom I had withdrawn a little 
 Mine eyes, that I might question Mr. W-sl-n, 
 Again I saw it brighter grown and larger. 
 
 * I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, 
 A w/ieei o'er the waters move gloriously on. — Moore. 
 
30 THE CELESTIAL CYCLER. 
 
 Then on each side of it appeared to me 
 I knew not what of legs, and underneath, 
 Little, so little ! there came forth another. 
 
 My mentor yet had uttered not a word, 
 
 While the first brightness into wheels unfolded ; 
 
 But, when he clearly recognized the chariot. 
 
 He cried aloud : " Learn, quick, to bow the knee 
 And hold the handles ! Now, get up thy spunk ! 
 Henceforward shalt thou see such bicyclers ! 
 
 " See, how he scorns all common arguments. 
 So that no horse he wants, nor other speed 
 Than his own wheels, between all distant points. 
 
 " See, how he holds them, pointed straight to Boston ! 
 
 Fanning the air with the bicyclic pinions. 
 
 That do not moult themselves like mortal hair." 
 
 Then, as still nearer and more near us came 
 The Bird of Britain, more glorious he appeared 
 On that — the eye could not endure his presence ; 
 
SONG OF THE SILENT WHEEL. 3 1 
 
 But down he cast him, and he came to ground 
 By a small footstep, gliding swift and light, 
 So that the cycles wobbled not thereby. 
 
 Upon the strand stood Bisakel the Angel ! 
 
 Beatitude seemed written in his face ! 
 
 And more than wine-red spirits shone within. 
 
 " In exitu the Yankees out of Walking ! " 
 Thus sang we three together in one voice, 
 Like whatso in that Psalm of old is written. 
 
 Then made he sign of wheely rood upon us ; 
 Whereat we took the horse-car for the town, 
 And he sped onward swiftly as he came. 
 
 SONG OF THE SILENT WHEEL. 
 
 Upon the Silent Wheel ! 
 
 Ha ! who shall lift us thither ? 
 
 Life in its middle term begins to wither. 
 
 And shaky shanks are thinner to the feeL 
 
'i'2. SONG OF THE SILENT WHEEL. 
 
 Who leads us with a gentle zeal 
 Thither — and whither ? 
 Upon the silent wheel ? 
 
 Upon the silent wheel, 
 
 Out over boundless regions 
 
 Of equitation! Send the mounting legions 
 
 Of youthful souls, the future's pledge of weal. 
 
 Who miles on axles firm can reel. 
 
 Shall be Health's carrier pigeons. 
 
 Upon the silent wheel ! 
 
 On Wheel and wheel, 
 
 To all the book -besotted, 
 
 The eldest heralds of the gait allotted 
 
 Beckon, and with reverted looks appeal, 
 
 To lead us with a gentle zeal 
 
 Into the seat of the great imported. 
 
 Upon the silent wheel ! 
 
 THE EARTH HATH ITS GEMS. 
 
 The earth hath its gems. 
 The heaven hath its stars ; 
 
 But my heart, my heart. 
 My heart hath its wheel. 
 
THE WHEEL. 33 
 
 Great are the earth and the heaven ; 
 
 Yet greater is my heart, 
 And fairer than gems and stars 
 
 Flashes and beams my wheel. 
 
 Thou little youth, and man, then. 
 
 Come unto my great heart ; 
 My heart, and the earth, and the heaven. 
 
 Are fleeting away with wheels. 
 
 THE WHEEL. 
 
 " Whither, on whirling wheel .? 
 Whither, with so much haste, 
 As if a thief thou wert ? " 
 
 " I have the Wheel of life ; 
 Soiled with my city's dust. 
 From the struggle and the strife 
 Of the narrow street I fly 
 To the Road's felicity. 
 To clear from me the frown 
 Of the moody toil of town." 
 
 (End of Translations.) 
 
34 PEGASUS IN {ABOUT 40) POUND. 
 
 PEGASUS IN (ABOUT 40) POUND. 
 Dies roi<s^ dies ilia. 
 
 Once into a quiet city, 
 
 Without taste and without feed, 
 In the golden prime of Autumn, 
 
 Came the Briton's iron steed. 
 
 Thereupon, to that age common. 
 From the school-boys was abuse ; 
 
 But the wise men, in their wisdom, 
 Put him straightway into use. 
 
 Then two morning city papers 
 Both allowed his praises well — 
 
 Dealers down the street proclaiming 
 There were bicycles to sell. 
 
 And the curious city people, 
 
 Rich and poor, and old and young, 
 
 Came in haste to see this wondrous 
 Wheely steed, with wire strung. 
 
PEGASUS IN {ABOUT 40) POUND. 35 
 
 Patiently and still, expectant, 
 
 Waited he of flighty limb, 
 For disporting far his pinions 
 
 In the triumph meant for him. 
 
 Then with circuits wide extended, 
 Breaking up their toil and care, 
 
 Lo, the strange steed late imported, 
 Was familiar everywhere. 
 
 And they found within th' Eleventh Ward, 
 Where the cycling club had meets. 
 
 Pure and bright example flowing 
 From the wheeling in the streets. 
 
 From that hour, the horse unfailing 
 Gladdens the whole region round, 
 
 Strengthening all who sit his saddle. 
 While he bears them without sound. 
 
36 THE LADDER OF SI HYGEIA. 
 
 THE LADDER OF ST. HYGEIA. 
 
 MR. SONGFELLOW ASSISTED TO NEW ALTITUDES. 
 
 Well, Saint Hygeia, have they said 
 That, of devices we can frame, 
 
 Your bicycle is best to tread 
 For following up a healthy aim. 
 
 All common folk to elevate. 
 
 Who wish to quicken and amend — 
 
 Its flight of steps, that-rolling gait, 
 Are rounds by which they may ascend. 
 
 The low-back ones, the base design, 
 That make had many virtues less ; 
 
 Its revels here in 'Sixty-nine 
 Were all occasions of excess. 
 
 The longing for big noble things, 
 The time for triumph, now ensu'th. 
 
 With hardciiing of the hand that brings 
 Persistence in the ways of youth. 
 
THE LADDER OF ST. HYGEIA. 17 
 
 Small draughts of ale — small beers, we need, 
 That have their roots in ; cause no reel, 
 
 And never wobble nor impede 
 The action of the sober wheel. 
 
 Treadles must now be trampled down 
 Beneath our feet, that we may gain 
 
 In the bright roads of every town 
 The right of evident domain ! 
 
 Having no wings, we cannot soar; 
 
 But we have feet and hands to climb 
 By due degrees, by more and more, 
 
 The saddled summits of our time. 
 
 The mighty bicycles of John 
 
 Bull wedge-like cleave the suburb airs ; 
 When nearer seen, to gad upon, 
 
 They are like antic flights of stairs 
 
 O 'er distant green hills that uprear 
 Their rounded backs toward the skies, 
 
 Crossing by roadways that appear 
 As we to higher levels rise. 
 
38 THE STILLY WHEEL. 
 
 The seats bicyclers reached and kept, 
 Were not secured by sudden flight ; 
 
 But they, while their companions crept. 
 Were toiling — tumbling left and right. 
 
 Walking is what was long a bore 
 With persons bent on exercise ; 
 
 We now discern, unseen before, 
 The steps to higher destinies. 
 
 Nor deem the boneshaker of the past 
 Is wholly wasted^ wholly vain. 
 
 As rising on the arch at last, 
 To cycling nobler we attain. 
 
 THE STILLY WHEEL. 
 
 BY MR. LONGFELLOE. 
 Auspice Hygei&j et sine lahe perfedus. 
 
 Nowhere such a previous steed, 
 Not in fancy — even, indeed, 
 'Zekiel saw no wheels with brake 
 Linked together in their make. 
 
THE STILLY WHEEL. 39 
 
 Man on little leather shelf — 
 Ever balancing itself, 
 Goes the wheel so still and fast 
 That it hardly seems to haste. 
 
 Never charioteer of old, 
 On his oaken axle rolled. 
 Such a course erect pursued 
 Through the gazing multitude. 
 
 Never school-boy in his zest 
 For all spinning things the best, 
 Top, or hoop, or sling, came out 
 Wandering whirling thus about. 
 
 As the mirror of its ride,. 
 People thickly on each side 
 Hang converted, and between 
 Floating fly the lads serene. 
 
 Hawk or eagle on the wing 
 Seems the only travelling 
 Like to one who laughs- and flies 
 On those wheels' contrasted size. 
 
40 THE STILLY WHEEL. 
 
 Silent wheel ! that Indian mood 
 Fame has not misunderstood ; 
 For thou glidest not alone, 
 111 content to be unknown. 
 
 And thy transits softly teach 
 Wisdom more than human speech, 
 Speedin g wit hout toil or noise 
 In unshaken eqtripeise- 
 
 Though it turneth no busy mill, 
 Yet, so stirring and so stilt 
 Gives some moving words/to say 
 To the traveller on his w^ : 
 
 " TraygTier, hurrying from the heat 
 Of'tne city, play thy feet ! 
 Ride a wheel, nor longer waste 
 Life with inconsiderate taste. 
 
 " Go not with the crowd that crawls 
 Where the rattling horse-car hauls. 
 Sit the quiet nag of steel, 
 Link together wheel and weal." 
 
BICYCLICALISTHENICS. 41 
 
 BICYCLI CALISTHENICS. 
 
 BY LONGFELLOW ET AL. 
 
 O GRACEFUL One that fleetest on, thy pace 
 Is an aerial promenade, and thy form 
 Goes poised as if it floated on the air. 
 With the soft ambulating gait of one 
 Who timeth all his motions to a measure ! 
 Has some Prometheus daringly again 
 Been stealing fire from Helios' chariot-wheels 
 To light bicycles with, and make them spin ? 
 Who thinks of bicycling hath already taken 
 One step upon the way to eminence ; 
 Such altitudes delight me — I will launch 
 On the sustaining wire, nor fear to fall 
 Like Icarus, nor serve myself like him 
 Who drove awry Hyperion's fiery steeds. 
 O fortunate, O happy day. 
 When a new cycle bears its load 
 Among the myriad wheels of earth ; 
 Like a young moon just spun to birth. 
 It rolls on its harmonious way 
 Into the boundless realms of road ! 
 
42 TO THE ROVER ONE. 
 
 
 
 TO THE RiVER RHONE. 
 
 BY MR. LONGMELLOW. 
 
 Thou rotal Rover, borne thro' sun and shower, 
 In steamers pulsing with volcanian glow, — 
 Plated in spotless nickel as the snow, 
 And mocked by billows ! — at the anointing hour, 
 Forth, like an ice-clad Norseman from a bower. 
 With dash and blink of farness didst thou go 
 To meet the dazzled tyros that below 
 Push to achieve thee and essay thy power. 
 And now thou provest in ^mmphal march 
 A king among the wheelers ! On thy way 
 Hundreds of towns await and welcome thee ; 
 Elders uplift them on the stately arch. 
 Fine bards delight in thee with IjtIcs gay, 
 And fleet thy progress on from sea to sea ! 
 
 It is a little wheel 
 
 All of rubber and steel, 
 With a big one, rather fickle, on afor'ard ; 
 
 And when it is good. 
 
 It is very very good, 
 But when it is bad, it is horrid ! 
 
YANKEE-LAND. 43 
 
 YANKEE-LAND. 
 
 Nmus ordo cyclorum. 
 
 The destined wheel is on thy shore, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 Its perch is at thy ample door, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 Ascend the gay exotic goer 
 That flashed the streets of Boston o'er. 
 And beat the boneshaker of yore, 
 
 Yankeeland, my Yankeeland ! 
 
 Hark to the wondering son's appeal, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 " My mother dear, I want a wheel," 
 
 Yankeeland !. 
 For life and health, for " go " and weal. 
 Thy beardless cavalry reveal, 
 And speed their beauteous limbs with steel ! 
 
 Yankeeland, my Yankeeland ! 
 
 They must not tumble in the dust, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 Their beaming steel should never rust, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 
44 YANKEE-LAND. 
 
 That slender firmness you may trust 
 Like slender blades in warlike thrust 
 Held by those numbered with the just, 
 Yankeeland, my Yankeeland ! 
 
 Come, for the wheel is bright and strong, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 Come, for thy carriance does thee wrong, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 Come for thy young bard in the throng. 
 Who stalks with levity along. 
 And gives a new key to much song, 
 
 Yankeeland, my Yankeeland ! 
 
 This iron forms no tyrant's chain, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 Britannia now sends not in vain, 
 
 Yankeeland ! 
 She greets her kindred o'er the main — 
 Slick transit! be the wild refrain 
 We shout in greeting back again, 
 
 Yankeeland, my Yankeeland ! 
 
ROTA ET ROTULA. 4$ 
 
 ROTA ET ROTULA. 
 BY SENIOR. 
 
 When life is lazy in my veins. 
 
 And joy is gone away, — 
 Although my legs' November lacks 
 
 The spring'ness of their May, 
 I climb and scamper off on that 
 
 Will warm my heart to move ; 
 'Tis greater wheel and lesser wheel. 
 
 On the leather seat above. 
 
 The guiding wand of silver hue, , 
 
 The spinal hollow bright, 
 With nether limbs that play or rest 
 
 Like creatures of delight ; 
 Oh, these combine a stir and shine 
 
 To warm old hearts to move 
 By greater wheel and lesser wheel, 
 
 On the russet seat above. 
 
 The great white wheel, I tread it as 
 
 Switzer his mount of snow. 
 And much the good me there befel 
 
 That many more can know : 
 
46 LAY OF THE PEDESTRIAN: 
 
 For a quiet sort of kindling stuff 
 To warm your heart to move, 
 
 Take greater wheel and lesser wheel, 
 On the leather seat above. 
 
 LAY OF THE PEDESTRIAN. 
 
 Stet quicunque volet^ potens 
 Rot(E culmine lubrico. — Seneca. 
 
 Turn, Cyclist, turn thy wheel and lower the proud ; 
 Turn thy still wheel past steeds and coaches loud ; 
 Thy wheel and thee we rather like than hate. 
 
 Turn, Cyclist, turn thy wheel long rhiles from town j 
 With that high wheel we go not up — or down ; 
 Gur speed is little, but our prudence great. 
 
 Smile we to see you up in many lands ; 
 Down, and we smile, sure of our feet and hands ; 
 That wheel we ride not, nor deride, but wait. 
 
 Turn, turn thy wheel above the walking crowd ; 
 Thy wheel and thou are greater than the proud ; 
 Thy wheel and thee we rather like than hate. 
 
THE BICYCLE. 47 
 
 THE BICYCLE. 
 
 A. T. +D. 
 
 Sure never yet was any heel 
 
 Could flit so lightly by. 
 Keep off, or else my bicycle 
 
 Will hit you coming nigh. 
 
 How lightly whirls the bicycle ! 
 
 How fiery-like you fly ! 
 Go, get you one ; this ticklish wheel 
 
 Be taught before you try. 
 
 Thou darest — give me now to reel 
 
 The rapid miles, or die. 
 There, take it, take my bicycle 
 
 And break your neck thereby. 
 
 We love that wheel, though hard and cold. 
 That nickeled shape of noble mold : 
 Leads a new cult, saith he who sings 
 To wiry harp of many tones 
 That men so rise o'er dust and stones 
 From their old selves to higher things. 
 
48 HASTE NOT, PAUSE NOT. 
 
 HASTE NOT, PAUSE NOT. 
 
 SEWLY TRANSLATED FROM OLD GOEASY (OFTEN SPELT 
 GOETHE).* 
 
 Without pause, without haste ! 
 Print the motto in thy breast; 
 Bear it with you as a spell 
 When you ride the bicycle. 
 Cobblestones may bring you down — 
 Bear right onward out of town. 
 
 Haste not ! Let no reckless deed 
 Mar for aye the slender steed. 
 Balance well, and keep the right, 
 Onward then with all delight. 
 Haste not ! Years may ne'er atone 
 For one " nasty cropper " done. 
 
 Pause not ! Teams are sweeping by ; 
 Tumble there not, lest you die. 
 Nothing mighty and sublime 
 Thus to fall before your time. 
 Glorious 't is to live to ride, 
 While these forms of ours abide. 
 
 * Schiller? — trust not the " Rev" editor of hymns. 
 
THE STEED ap FIRE. 49 
 
 Haste not, pause not ! Calmly sit ; 
 Meekly bear a front of grit. 
 Heed not boys that cry thee " Whoa, 
 Emma " — let them see thee go. 
 Duly wag thy pivot guide. 
 Take the right, whate'er betide. 
 Haste not, pause not ! Trials past, 
 Health shall crown thy work at last. 
 
 THE STEED OF FIRE. 
 
 FROM POE'S "ELDORADO" — FABLED GOLDEN MADE 
 TRUE STEEL. 
 
 Soberly dight, 
 
 A modern knight 
 Upon a hack of hire 
 
 Had journeyed long 
 
 Singing a song 
 In search of a steed of fire. 
 
 But he grew old. 
 This knight, tho' bold, 
 
so THE STEED OF FIRE. 
 
 With o'er his heart a dire 
 Dump as he found 
 Nothing around 
 
 That looked like a steed of fire. 
 
 And as his strength 
 Waned, he at length 
 
 Met a bicycling flyer : 
 " Flyer," said he, 
 " What ! can it be — 
 
 Can this be the steed of fire ? " 
 
 " Upon this mount 
 
 We surely count, 
 'T is all you can desire ; 
 
 Ride, boldly ride," 
 
 Cycler replied, 
 " If you seek for a steed of fire ! " 
 
 He dried his tears, — 
 And shed his years, 
 
 All on the windy wire ; 
 And sweeps along 
 Singing much song 
 
 In praise of the steed of fire. 
 
BISAKEL. 5 1 
 
 BISAKEL. 
 
 "ISRAFEL," BY POE, RECAST FOR A NEW ROLL. 
 
 The angel Bisakel, whose wings are wheels, has the fleetest pace of 
 all God's creatures. — Koran. 
 
 In heaven a spirit dotli dwell 
 
 Whose great wing is a wheel. 
 None fly so wildly well 
 As the angel Bisakel, 
 And the giddy stars, so legends say, 
 Slowing their course, attend the play 
 
 Of his wondrous heel. 
 
 Maturing her age. 
 
 In her highest noon, 
 
 The enamelled moon 
 Reddens with rage, 
 
 And to witness, with misgivin', 
 (With the nautic Pleiads even. 
 
 More than seven,) 
 
 Pauses in heaven. 
 
 And they say (the starry choir 
 And the other gossiping things) 
 
52 BISAKEL. 
 
 That Bisakeli's fire 
 Is owing to that tire 
 
 O'er which he sits and slings 
 The trembling living wire 
 
 Of those unusual wings. 
 
 But surely that angel trod 
 Treadles amazing flighty ; 
 
 And, for a gay young god. 
 There bicycling houris are 
 
 His rivals — Aphrodite 
 
 Transports faster than a star ! 
 
 The zealousy he took 
 
 With such company to deal — 
 
 His leg and style, his pure caoutchouc. 
 With the fervor of his wheel — 
 Well may the stars go reel ! 
 
 We say thou art not wrong, 
 
 Bisakeli, who despisest 
 Feathers and psalming song ; 
 Bloom thou the laurels among, 
 
 Best angel and the wisest, — 
 Meri-ily live, and long ! 
 
GRAND CHORUS. S3 
 
 — Ah, heaven is his'n, indeed ; 
 
 This world is sweets and sours ; 
 
 Our powers are puny powers, 
 And the slowest of his perfect speed 
 
 Is the swiftest of ours. 
 
 If I could dwell 
 Where Bisakel 
 
 Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
 He might not spin so wildly well 
 
 Our mortal wheelery. 
 While a better song than now might swell 
 
 From my lyre within the sky — 
 
 But — how is this " for hi^h " ? 
 
 GRAND CHORUS. 
 
 J. D. + D. 
 
 At last great Bisakeli came, 
 Inventor of the rotal frame ; 
 The fleet enthusiast, from his starry store, 
 
 Enlarged the former raittling rounds. 
 And added height to hushed sounds, 
 4 
 
54 OWED TO THE BICYCLE. 
 
 With Britain's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. 
 His new machine deserves the prize, 
 To that award the crown ; 
 It raises mortals toward the skies, 
 And draws an angel down. 
 
 OWED TO THE BICY.CLE. 
 
 (and paid in altered notes from TOM MOORE.) 
 
 It came o'er the sea, 
 My Cycle to me, 
 Came thro' sunshine, storm, and snows ; 
 Rubber and steel, 
 This, the true wheel. 
 Turns the same where'er it goes. 
 Tho' fate may frown, so I ride and fall not, 
 'T is life on the wing, a life that can pall not. 
 Thou cam'st o'er the sea. 
 Bicycle, to me, 
 Came whence chilly our east wind blows ; 
 Seas may congeal. 
 But the true wheel 
 Turns the same where'er it goes. 
 
THOSE BICYCLES. 55 
 
 Was not the sea 
 Made to bring thee ? 
 Land for roads and rides alone ? 
 Once walking slaves, 
 Cycle us saves, — 
 Wheel and liberty 's all our own. 
 No fare to pay, no limits to bound us, 
 The town behind, and the country around us — 
 Thou cam'st o'er the sea, 
 Bicycle, to me. 
 Came thro' sunshine, storm, and snows; 
 Seas may congeal. 
 But thy true wheel 
 Turns the same, where'er it goes ! 
 
 THOSE BICYCLES. 
 IN MIDSUMMER. 
 
 Those bicycles, those bicycles ! 
 How merry a tale their image tells. 
 Of youth and health, and that fleet time 
 When last I heard their whistle's chime. 
 
S6 ANACREON: ODE XXXIX. 
 
 Those boyous hours are passed away ; 
 And many a heart that then was gay, 
 Out of or in town darkly dwells, 
 And rides not now those bicycles. 
 
 Again 't will be — they are not gone ; 
 That gleeful wheel will still roll on, 
 While I help bards to wire their shells 
 And sing your praise, fleet bicycles. 
 
 ANACREON: ODE XXXIX. 
 
 mo(o)re translated than ever. 
 
 How I love the restive boy, 
 Tripping on the wheel of joy ! 
 How I love the mellow sage, 
 Rolling up the hill of age ! 
 
 And whene'er the man of years 
 On the wheel of boy appears, 
 Snows may o'er his head be hung. 
 But his heart and heels are young. 
 
RQTAL POESY. 5/ 
 
 ROTAL POESY. 
 
 BY T. W. O. 
 
 Who comes so rollicking, 
 
 Riding along, 
 While the blue poetess 
 
 Frets at his song ? 
 Song, she says, vying 
 With the high crying 
 Wild geese in flying 
 
 Samely prolong. 
 
 Not so the ragged boy 
 
 By the wayside, 
 Watching that bicycle 
 
 Down the road glide, 
 Wire bird winging, 
 Thro' the dust bringing 
 That rhymer singing 
 
 To the hushed ride. 
 
 " Stay," said the little boy, 
 
 " Bicycle, stay ; 
 Linger, sweet ballader, 
 
 Linger, I say." 
 
FROM THE GREEK. 
 
 Swiftly proceeding 
 Past both, unlieeding, 
 Song and wheel speeding 
 Glided away. 
 
 So to all youthful eyes 
 
 Bicycles shone ; 
 Every bard able was 
 
 Forced to get on, 
 Editors declining 
 Some things combining 
 Two in one shining. 
 
 Who 's the next one ? 
 
 FROM THE GREEK. 
 
 BY T. M. + D. 
 
 If you ride upon horses or asses, 
 You '11 never write anything nice ; 
 
 The wheel 's the true steed of Parnassus, 
 Which carries a bard to the skies. 
 
THE DANDY BICYCLER. 59 
 
 THE DANDY BICYCLER. 
 
 Cychts Sdntillans. 
 
 Rich and fair were the wheels he sat, 
 And he had on his head a strange club hat ; 
 But his gay leggings were far beyond 
 His sparkling spokes or level wand. 
 
 " Laddy ! dost thou not fear to stray 
 
 Alone, bicycling through this by-way? 
 
 Are Erin's sons so peaceable grown 
 
 As not to be tempted to throwing the stone ? " 
 
 " Old man, I feel not the least alarm, 
 
 No son of Erin will offer me harm ; 
 
 For though they love mischief and rows galore, 
 
 Old man, they love manly exertion more." 
 
 On he went there, more than a mile. 
 In safety, and bright as their own green isle \ 
 And wholly correct is he who relied 
 Upon Cycle's glamour — and Erin beside. 
 
6o MAGNA LI A CYCLI. 
 
 MAGNALIA CYCLI. 
 
 A LA MOORE. 
 
 Mount bicycle fair ! 
 
 Every spoke you twinkle 
 From the face of Care 
 
 Charms aw^y a wrinkle. 
 Health's rekindled flame 
 
 None so surely feels 
 As he thro' whose frame 
 
 It shoots from saddled wheels. 
 
 Franklin did, they say, 
 
 Tame the lightning's pinions. 
 And drew down one day 
 
 Fire from cloud dominions ; 
 So new poets sit, 
 
 On bicycles bright'ning. 
 From the heaven of wit 
 
 Borrowing its lightning. 
 
 Topping youth are up 
 Lyric heights aspirin', 
 . And no vinous cup 
 
 Mix their finer fire in j 
 
MY MOBILE NUMBERS. 6 1 
 
 While they gods enact 
 
 Clad in light apparel, 
 Jove on his eagle backed, 
 
 Bacchus on his barrel 1 
 
 MY MOBILE NUMBERS. 
 
 Not quite every day am I 
 
 Fit for moving poesy ; 
 
 But when on the reliable 
 
 Firm-elastic bicycle. 
 
 O'er the vifires I rewrite 
 
 As the godhead may incite — 
 
 Like the wires, then I sing, 
 
 Bisakel inspiriting. 
 
 Thus engaged our lines are whirled 
 
 With bicycle's thro' the world. . . . 
 
 Who tunes next the wheely lyre ? 
 
 Herrick slacks and doth retire ; 
 
 So my fancy cools, till when 
 
 Some right spirit come agen. 
 
 Let those ride now who seldom rode before. 
 And those who often rode, now ride the more. 
 
62 '■'■MUSIC' ON THE WIRE. 
 
 LITTLE MISS LOQUITUR. 
 
 BY T. W. O. 
 
 Whenas on wheels my Johnny goes, 
 Then, then methinks, how fleetly shows 
 That lively action of his hose. 
 
 And when I cast mine eyes and see 
 What brave vibration wires be, 
 Oh, how that glittering taketh me ! 
 
 "MUSIC" ON THE WIRE. 
 
 WM. STRODE, ABOUT 163O, — NOW RIDES. 
 
 When seniors tread the cranky wheel. 
 
 From creeping passing to that art, 
 And when at every turn~we feel 
 Our pulses stir and bear a part ; 
 When wires can make 
 The heartstrings wake ; 
 Philosophy 
 Cannot deny 
 The wheel is made of jollity. 
 
''MUSIC" ON THE WIRE. 63 
 
 When with excursive boys we train, 
 
 Where'er the wheel affecteth most ; 
 And sometimes singing, will maintain 
 Bicyclers mid the heavenly host, — 
 In lays we think 
 Make poets blink ; 
 Philosophy 
 Cannot deny 
 The wheel consists of jollity. 
 
 Thus did the flighty bicycle 
 
 My senses rock with motion sweet ; 
 Like wool * on snow its paces fell. 
 Soft like a spirit's, and as fleet. 
 Grief who needs feel 
 That hath a wheel ? 
 Up let him hie. 
 And clambering fly. 
 And change his dole for jollity. 
 
 Unless hereby above himself he can 
 Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! 
 
 * Laneos pedes. 
 
64 THE WHEEL-SHOP. 
 
 ROTA ANGLICA. 
 
 O Wheel of wire, misjudged by walking man, — ■ 
 
 The power of John Bull's pace. 
 What rides are here since thou and Jonathan 
 
 First greeted face to face ! 
 He doomed to creep, thou on him didst impress 
 The pattern of a ruddy wheeliness. 
 
 Yes, it was well ; for so, mid cares that rule 
 
 Us men to business tied. 
 The charm uplifts us from the chair and stool 
 
 To seats before untried. 
 We wheel our course like pigeons or like hawks ; 
 Who rides with us he flies, he is but dust who walks. 
 
 THE WHEEL-SHOP. 
 
 Young Sixty went there, and soon met with a Friend ; 
 Folks say in his tights he 's now going on end ! 
 Then why should not I the same method pursue. 
 And quicken my paces as other boys do ? 
 
 Forty. 
 
CARMEN BICYCLICUM. 65 
 
 CARMEN BICYCLICUM. 
 
 BY T. W. O. 
 
 Bicycling bloods go forth to war 
 
 Hygeia's crown to gain ; 
 Her rosy banner streams afar, — 
 
 Who follows in their train ? 
 
 Who best can sit his pig-skin perch, 
 
 Triumphant over bane, 
 Who patient bears his jolt or lurch. 
 
 He follows in their train. 
 
 That lawyer first, whose eagle eye 
 
 Could look beyond the law. 
 Rode forty miles upon the fly. 
 
 Wrote what he did and saw ; 
 
 And one who raids it into Song, 
 
 'Midst some immortal strain, 
 Rewriting poets where they 're wrong ; 
 
 Who follows in their train ? 
 
66 CARMEN BICYCLICUM. 
 
 A glorious band, the chosen club, 
 
 On whom the spirit came, 
 Twelve valiant saints, their hope the Hub 
 
 Would mock not at the same ; 
 
 They met the Briton's burnished steel, 
 
 The Lion's narrow wain ; 
 They bowed their necks to mount the wheel, - 
 
 Who follows in their train ? 
 
 This mobile band of men and boys, 
 
 With many converts made, 
 Around the State unthrown rejoice, 
 
 In garments light arrayed. 
 
 They climbed the steep ascent to saddle 
 
 Thro' trifling toil and pain ; 
 May all yet have the grace to paddle 
 
 And follow in their train ! 
 
 Beneath the roll of men on-tirely great 
 The Wheel is mightier than the Horse. 
 
FLEET WHEEL. 6/ 
 
 FLEET WHEEL. 
 
 " SWEET HOME " MADE MORE MOVING. 
 
 With coaches and palace-cars though we may deal, 
 Be it even to tumble, there's no seat like wheel ! 
 A charm from the skies ever follows us there, 
 Which, riding enclosed, is not met anywhere. 
 
 Wheel, wheel, fleet wheel ! 
 
 There 's no seat like wheel ! 
 
 Apart from the wheel, metals dazzle in vain ! 
 O give me my high bright bicycle again ! 
 The boys mounting gaily that came at the call ; 
 O give me fleet pace of leg, dearer than all ! 
 
 Wheel, wheel, fleet wheel ! 
 
 There 's no seat like wheel ! 
 
 How fleet 'tis to flit o'er a three-minute mile, 
 And all cares and the bother of work to beguile ! 
 Let others go fight, or gold treasures reveal. 
 But give me to shoot for the pleasures of wheel ! 
 
 Wheel, wheel, fleet wheel ! 
 
 But give me the speeding 
 
 And pleasures of wheel. 
 
68 WHAT TO DO. 
 
 To that I will turn when allured by the fair, 
 The heart's merest foUies can catch me not there ; 
 And more with bicycle than rum will I reel — 
 Be it even to tumble, there's nothing like wheel. 
 
 Wheel, wheel, fleet wheel ! 
 
 There 's nothing like wheel. 
 
 SECOND YOUTH. 
 
 My native youth, when I did love 
 
 And thought it very sweet, 
 Was highly gay in many a way. 
 
 Though but lowly moved my feet. 
 
 Now, when lame age with stealing pace 
 Caught at me with his crutch, 
 
 I vaulted over the saddle of wheel — 
 I will have nothing of such ! 
 
 WHAT TO DO. 
 
 If sad that Fortune's wheel can't use thee wellj 
 And seeking for some surer " dear Gazelle," 
 Cheer up, step up, and try the bicycle. 
 
HIS FIliST RIDE. 6g 
 
 HIS FIRST RIDE. 
 
 By Sir Frightful Plagiary 
 Taken from Miss Alice Carey. 
 
 Earth with its slow and tiresome ills 
 
 Recedes some feet away ; 
 Lift up y'r heads, ye neighboring hills, 
 
 I 'm coming out your way ! 
 
 My soul is full of pilfered song, 
 IItgA7e>ayma.r\'s is my right ; 
 
 Bicycles that I feared too long. 
 Are things of life — and light. 
 
 My pulses fast and fearless beat, 
 My limbs seek wider bounds, 
 
 I feel grow firm beneath my feet 
 The rubber pedal rounds. 
 
 A Fifty-inch the courage gives 
 
 High as the brave to go ; 
 Same force in my two-wheeler lives, 
 
 Our circulations show. 
 
7° ''MORTALITY" ENLIVENED. 
 
 This is the safe and narrow way — 
 The wires sing in the wind — 
 
 To men on horse of flesh I say, 
 I 've no such carnal mind. 
 
 In palace-cars I would not be, 
 Where rides the railroad king ; 
 
 O steam, where is thy victory ? 
 O bird, where is thy wing ? 
 
 N. B. — He came a nasty cropper and back by rail ! 
 
 "MORTALITY" ENLIVENED. 
 
 Made from William Knox's song, 
 Twice as true, and half as long. 
 
 Why should not the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
 Like a fast fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, 
 The sweep of the foam on the crest of a wave, 
 He passes from town on his bicycle brave ! 
 
 The lad on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose 
 
 eye. 
 Shine beauty and pleasure — he triumphs to flyj 
 
"MORTALITY" ENLIVENED. 7\ 
 
 And the memory of those boneshakers once praised 
 Is away from the minds of the lively erased. 
 
 So the two-wheeler goes, like the flourishing weed, 
 That withers away to let flowers succeed ; 
 So the two-wheeler comes — even those we behold, 
 To reseat every tail on the bicycle bold. 
 
 We are not the same sort that our fathers have been, 
 Nor see the same sights that our fathers have seen ; 
 We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun. 
 But run not the same course that our fathers have run. 
 
 The thoughts we are thinking, could our fathers think ? 
 From " Spirits " we 're not shrinking from, how they 
 
 did shrink ! 
 To the wheel we are clinging to, they too would cling, 
 For it speeds on the road like a bird on the wing. 
 
 They died — without Ride ! had they things we have 
 
 now. 
 Who race on the turf that lies over their brow, 
 They 'd made in their dwellings a transient abode. 
 To have bicycle-meets on their pilgrimage road. 
 
72 SONG TO BISAKEL. 
 
 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the wag of a tail, 
 To the blossom of health from the drudgery pale, - 
 From the gilded saloon of the beer and the crowd - 
 Why should not the mortal of spirit be proud ? 
 
 SONG TO BISAKEL. 
 {Veus ex MachinS. The Prince of Pace. ) 
 
 To Bisakel we sing to-day, 
 Whose steely beams with fancy play. 
 And make his wheels so brightly shine 
 Aurora's face is less divine. 
 Sing him, and to the sliding throne 
 Of sparkles which he goes upon, 
 lo Paeans let us sing, 
 No physic ! Bisakel is king. 
 
 Sound all his praises with right fire, 
 Captive bards support the lyre ; 
 With laurelled helmet for his head, 
 Disciples dance about his tread ; 
 
 5 
 
WHERE'S MY JOHN? 73 
 
 When on his rushing wire he plays, 
 Scatter roses round, and bays. 
 
 lo Paeans let us sing 
 
 To the bright pedalian king. 
 
 WHERE'S MY JOHN? 
 
 BY T. W. O. 
 
 " Ho, Cycler from the road ! 
 Where 's my boy — my boy ? " 
 " What 's the boy's name, good wife, 
 And what is the make he strode ? " 
 
 "-My boy John — 
 
 He that went to ride — 
 
 What ! I 'm not on the ' make,' Cycler \ 
 
 My boy, my boy 's my pride. 
 
 " You come back to town, 
 
 And not seen my John ? 
 
 I might as well have asked some hodman 
 
 Down there in the town. 
 
 There 's not your likes in all the county. 
 
 But he knows my John. 
 
74 WHERE 'S MY JOHN? 
 
 " Where 's my boy — my boy ? 
 
 Speak louder, and let me know, 
 
 Or I swear you are no c) cler, 
 
 Tight breeches or no, 
 
 Gay leggings or no, Cycler, 
 
 Whistle and such or no ! 
 
 Sure his'n is called a Jolly Briton." 
 
 " He rode too fast, too fast." 
 
 " And why should I be fast. Cycler ? 
 
 That have my own boy John ! 
 
 If I was stout as I am proud 
 
 I 'd bang you over the crown ! 
 
 Where 's my boy, my John, Cycler ? " 
 
 " That big wheel went down." 
 
 " Where 's my boy — my boy .'' 
 
 What care I for the wheel. Cycler ? 
 
 I was never a-top it. 
 
 Be it running or on the ground. 
 
 Whether or no, though, I '11 be bound, 
 
 My Johnny would n't swap it. 
 
 I say, where 's my John ? " 
 
 " Every man on wheels goes down. 
 
 When a man can't stop it." 
 
CAREFUL SENIOR'S SONG. 75 
 
 " Where 's my boy — my boy ? 
 What care I for the men, Cycler ? 
 That am John's mother ! 
 Where 's my boy — my boy ? 
 Tell me of him, and no whopper." 
 " He came a nastv cropper ! " 
 
 Note. — The original of the above seemed well worth capturing, in 
 spite of the severe verdict (in another connection) of a brother rhymer 
 in a New York paper : — 
 
 " The fellah th-th4t steals from Sydney Dobell 
 Is a wegular lunatic." 
 
 A charge of cruelly kidnapping an only child might hold. Methinks 
 I hear a wailing voice, — 
 
 Ho, rider of the B ! 
 
 Where 's my poem — my poem? 
 
 CAREFUL SENIOR'S SONG. 
 
 Dum vivimus volvamus. 
 
 England — how wide her glory shines, 
 
 How high her seats arise ! 
 Known thro' the earth by thousand signs, 
 
 By two signs in the skies. 
 
^6 CAREFUL SENIOR'S SONG. 
 
 Bicyclus thence, that art the best, 
 
 The true and living wheel, 
 Upborne upon that buoyant crest, 
 
 No feebleness I feel. 
 
 Quickened thereon, and made alive, 
 
 I equitate afoot ; 
 My life I from thy top derive, 
 
 My vigor from the shoot. 
 
 Grafted on thee I reach the sky — 
 
 At least, I think I will, 
 For seated more than four feet high. 
 
 My soul mounts higher still. 
 
 Careful throughout Ward Elev'n I drove. 
 
 From all destruction free ; 
 My hands were well engaged above, 
 
 My legs were still with thee. 
 
 Too long, alas, my devious feet 
 , The sidewalk ways have trode ; 
 Henceforth I '11 travel in the street, 
 O wheel, or on the road. 
 
CAREFUL SENIOR'S SONG. 77 
 
 My walking beams were feeble sticks, 
 
 Slower and shorter * then ; 
 I was, before, but five feet six, 
 
 And now I 'm five feet ten ! 
 
 Yet many tread a higher crank, 
 
 All modest is my zeal, 
 I make the limits of my shank 
 
 The bounds unto my wheel. 
 
 I clip high-climbing thoughts at sight 
 
 Of rounds of swelling pride ; 
 Their fate is worse that from the height 
 
 Of sixty inches slide. 
 
 When cobblestones and crossings show 
 
 Like breakers unto me, 
 I do whatever I can do, 
 
 And leave the rest to thee. 
 
 If casual falls delay our pace, 
 
 Together we arise ; 
 Quickly I reassume my place. 
 
 And ride for exercise. 
 
 * Four years ago " Mr. Punch " queried as to the growing diameter 
 -)f the wheel and its effects en length of limb in the future. 
 
78 CUR RENTE BICYCLO. 
 
 By fall of wheels, and autumn years, 
 Forewarned to be more wary. 
 
 In 'Eighty- two he calmly steers 
 A safe Xtraordinary. 
 
 WHEEL VS. HORSE. 
 
 When thou wouldst, O man, go ride, 
 On the big bicycle glide ; 
 Drive it round with sturdy glee, 
 'Tis the fittest horse for thee. 
 Prancers and trotters and pacers. 
 Dexter and Maud S., the racers, 
 Iroquois, Foxhall, that for us 
 Beat those of Gaul and John Taurus, 
 Though they be horses of quality. 
 Match not the bicycle's jollity. 
 
 CURRENTE BICYCLO. 
 Up-atop-of-the-wheel young man, 
 Sort of cavalry-club young man, 
 
 A spinner and spurter. 
 
 And fall-in-the-dirter, 
 More a leggy than army young man. 
 
RATHER THAN ROTA. 79 
 
 RATHER THAN ROTA. 
 
 Rather take Spring out the year, 
 
 Or from Spring her flowers, 
 Have no grassy green appear 
 
 All my Summer hours ; 
 Than take Rota and its praise, 
 Rolling Rota, from my days ! 
 
 From the toper take his horn, 
 
 Whether sweet or bitter, 
 Let no " blossom " red adorn 
 
 Him a bottle-quitter : 
 Not take Rota and its art. 
 Rolling Rota, from my heart. 
 
 Pierce the homeward carrier-dove 
 
 With an arrow speeding, 
 And arrest her flight of love 
 
 Hawk or storm unheeding : 
 Rota let fly whereso bent — 
 Only in midwinter pent ! 
 
 JUVENIS. 
 
8o THE LIGHT OF THE STUD. 
 
 THE PILGRIM. 
 
 BY SIR WALTER ROLLY. 
 
 Give me my bicycle of quiet, 
 
 My horse of health to walk upon ; 
 
 Enough of not pultaceous diet, — 
 
 My tin of lubrication ; 
 
 My hose and breeches (leg's true gauge) ; 
 
 And thus I '11 take my pilgrimage. 
 
 Then every happy day I beg 
 
 More pacieful pilgrims I may see, 
 That have cast off their nags of leg, 
 
 And ride a-wheelback, just like me. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE STUD. 
 
 Bicycle 's the sun of our stable, 
 
 His beams the spokes so fine ; 
 We planets that so are able 
 
 With him to roll and shine. 
 Let circling mirth abound ; 
 
 We '11 all grow bright 
 
 With borrowed, light. 
 And shine as he goes round. 
 
CYCLUS PRO ME PREPARATUS. 8 1 
 
 CYCLUS PRO ME PREPARATUS. 
 BY AUGUSTUS MOUNTAGEN TOPWHEELY. 
 
 Wheel of England sent for me, 
 Let me ride myself on thee : 
 Let the young bicycling blood, 
 Who the driven sides hath trod 
 Of the crackly double goer. 
 Teach me too its speed and power. 
 
 Labors of my head and hands 
 Not fulfil my law's demands ; 
 Could my toil no respite know. 
 And my coffers overflow, 
 For ill-health would not atone — 
 One must save can't stand alone. 
 
 Rein nor whip in hand I bring. 
 Simply to the cross I cling ; 
 Cap and breeches have for dress 
 And the coat of wheeliness. 
 Fowl and Time and riches fly. 
 Dash me. Cycle, so can I ! 
 
82 A HYMNLET. 
 
 While I drive this fleeting wheel 
 Oft my trusty brake I feel ; 
 When I go down hills unknown, 
 S'pose I do get sometimes thrown? 
 Wheel of England sent for me, 
 Let me ride myself on thee ! 
 
 A HYMNLET. 
 
 Beati possidentes. 
 
 Happy are we whose joys abound 
 
 High on the whirling rim, 
 Who Bicycle indeed have found, 
 
 And give the praise to him. 
 
 I leave the earth, I rise and go, 
 
 To be upheld and blest ; 
 His'n are both my soles below. 
 
 And that within my breast. 
 
 Long may we tread the rapid wheel 
 
 With undiverted feet ; 
 And strength subdue, and flaming zeal. 
 
 The steepest grades we meet. 
 
A PENSIVE SONG LET. 83 
 
 A PENSIVE SONGLET. 
 
 The young who with rejoicing feel 
 The opening of Hfe's sunny day, 
 
 These are who hail the wingfed wheel 
 In all its bright and steel array. 
 
 Ride the bicycles while ye may, 
 Old Time is faster flying, flying, 
 
 And what gay youth goes miles today, 
 Tomorrow may be lying dying. 
 
 s. A. D. 
 
 THE PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. 
 
 A WORDSWORTHY VARIATION BY A RYDAL BARD. 
 
 It was a phantom of delight 
 When first it gleamed upon my sight ; 
 A lively apparition sent. 
 To captivate a continent. 
 
84 THE PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. 
 
 Its spokes as rays ot starlight tair ; 
 Like starlight, too, they twinkled where 
 Bestriders hereabout were borne. 
 From May-time until Christmas morn ; 
 A stately shape, a racer gay. 
 To mount, to start, and win the day. 
 
 I saw it upon nearer view, 
 
 A horse, and yet a carriage, too ! 
 
 With foot-hold motions light and free, 
 
 And steps to aid agility. 
 
 Accounts are had — in which we meet 
 
 Fleet records, promises as fleet ; 
 
 A creature not too bright to scoot 
 
 For human nature's daily foot; 
 
 For transient trips, or ample miles, 
 
 Onward Rotator tears, and smiles. 
 
 And now I feel with hand serene 
 The very pulse of the machine;* 
 A being, breathing though no breath, 
 A traveller e'en for life and death, 
 
 * William's own line, of dubious fitness till now. 
 
IN THE RUNNING' EM CO.'S SALESROOM. 85 
 
 With rider firm, of temperate will, 
 
 Of balance, eyesight, strength, and skill ; 
 
 A perfect carriage, nobly planned 
 
 To run with comfort, at command ; 
 
 And yet a courser still and bright, 
 
 Of forty pounds of pure delight. 
 
 IN THE RUNNING'EM CO.'S SALESROOM. 
 
 BY TWO RYDAL BARDS. 
 
 /'Tax not the rotal Gait with vain expense, 
 With ill-matched wheels the Artisan who planned 
 (At first contriving for a jaunty band 
 Of tight-breeched Britons only) these immense, 
 And little, whirls of still circumference ! 
 Give all thou canst, my best expect no lower. 
 The price is regulated less or more,'' 
 So spake who sold for merely dollars and cents 
 These lofty spinners, that launching seat aloof, 
 Self-poised to shoot over the hills- and dells 
 Where light and shade refresh, where Rustic dwells. 
 Fingering and pondering them as both would fly, 
 Our thoughts flew with a fleetness giving proof 
 That we were born for high legerity. 
 
86 HYGEIA'S WHEEL. 
 
 HYGEIA'S WHEEL. 
 
 Lux ecce surgit ferrea. 
 
 Swift heralds bright 
 
 With feet of might 
 Upon bicycles stand, 
 
 Sent to proclaim 
 
 In John's high name 
 Glad ridings to the land. 
 
 Long miles they rove, 
 
 They walk above. 
 And " Come up hither ! " cry, 
 
 " The soles that climb 
 
 Wheel's height sublime 
 Catch Health upon the fly." 
 
 The little child, 
 
 Who brightly smiled 
 When red three-wheeler bore, 
 
 Will leave that kind, — 
 
 His growing mind 
 Rides upon something more. 
 
 With accents sweet 
 
 His lips repeat 
 
HYGEIA'S WHEEL. 87 
 
 The chorus of the high : 
 
 " True soles that be 
 
 From walk made free 
 Catch Health upon the fly." 
 
 Joy crowns our powers 
 
 Some summer hours, 
 And spring and autumn days ; 
 
 'Mid winter snows 
 
 We in repose 
 Sing thoughts of roily pace. 
 
 Thus pales or burns 
 
 Wheel's star by turns, 
 As rolling seasons fly ; 
 
 Both Winter's blight 
 
 And Summer's light 
 See bloom upon the Bi. 
 
 From health amiss 
 
 To height of this 
 When willing mortals strive, 
 
 Wheel is their gain, 
 
 And pace amain 
 Shall keep their blood alive. 
 
88 A MERRY CAR. 
 
 But higher still, 
 O'er trouble's hill, 
 
 Their force shall onward hie ; 
 Till souls shall save 
 Beyond the grave 
 
 Their Health above the sky. 
 
 A MERRY CAR. 
 
 BY SMITH ET AL. 
 
 Bicycle, 't is of thee. 
 Fleet car of levity, 
 
 Of thee I sing : 
 Wheel I and brothers ride, 
 And on the still rim's pride, 
 Up every high hill-side 
 
 Drive the great ring. 
 
 Two-wheeler — or if three. 
 Car of hilarity. 
 
 The same I love : 
 
A MERRY CAR. 89 
 
 I hate the rocky ills 
 That give me ugly spills, 
 Yet my heart rather thrills — ' 
 See as above. 
 
 Make carols on the breeze, 
 And wring from all the P's 
 
 Fleet wheeldom's song : 
 Let walking ones awake. 
 Let older gents partake. 
 And, ready on the brake. 
 
 Fly down along ! 
 
 Our Bisakel, to thee, 
 Angel of wheelery, 
 
 To thee we sing : 
 Long make our band be bright 
 With wheeldom's roily light ; 
 Propel us by thy might. 
 
 Great pedal king. 
 
90 ELDERS, COME UP. 
 
 ELDERS, COME UP. 
 J. D. + D. 
 
 Creep ye no more, grave walkers, 
 Why need you move so slow ? 
 
 Look now, the young wheei-stalkers - 
 And have n't they got the go ! 
 
 But though sons easily rise, 
 Father still keeping 
 Sidewalks hies creeping, 
 
 Dully, yet dully hies 
 
 Creeping. 
 
 Wheel is a care-beguiling, 
 A ride that years befits ; 
 
 Doth not the son go smiling 
 When fair on saddle he sits ? 
 
 Ride you then, ride and rise, 
 Doubt not in feeling 
 While he flies wheeling. 
 
 Softly, now softly flies 
 
 Wheeling. 
 6 
 
WINTRY MUSINGS. 91 
 
 TO MIDDEL ACER, ESQ. 
 
 J. D. + D. 
 
 Least of a bird, sublimely when you might 
 Fly long and steep, to fail before the height 1 
 What if your dull forefathers did not fly, 
 Could you not let a bad example die ? 
 Wheelmen are risen into an airier way ; 
 Your age does better to ride fast and gay. 
 Good sense, then, in your worship would appear, 
 Now to begin, and so go through the year. 
 
 WINTRY MUSINGS. 
 
 Habitus Blcydkus. 
 
 When breezes are soft, and roads are hard, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 Thou to my trying dost give reward, 
 And wheel is my wheel for any meet. 
 
92 WINTRY MUSINGS. 
 
 For the drinking and eat of the day, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 Oft am I bothered and scarce can pay, 
 But wheel is my wheel for other meet. 
 
 When I, lone bachelor once, did sigh, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 Thou didst me pity, and drew me nigh 
 To wheel as ray wheel for partner meet. 
 
 When I, since married for my sins, did cry, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 Again didst pity, and made me fly ! 
 
 And wheel is my wheel for true helpmeet. 
 
 'T is winter time now, the year is young, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 My ridings fail me, but may be sung. 
 For wheel is my wheel for singing meet. 
 
 White as the snow is thy nickeled skin, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 Though I can't drive it thro' thick and thin. 
 The wheel is my wheel for surface meet. 
 
ADAPTED ODE. 93 
 
 My face paleth, my tread is low, 
 (Bicycle high with the slippery seat) 
 
 I merely sing you, but travel slow 
 Till wheel is my wheel for early meet. 
 
 ADAPTED ODE. 
 
 THE TRYING 'CYCLER TO HIS WHEEL. 
 
 RoTAL bird of travelling fame, 
 Let me quit this sort of game : 
 Climbing, toppling, faltering, vying, 
 Oh the strain, the hopes of trying ! 
 Peace, fond motor, cease the strife. 
 And start me languid into life. 
 
 Hark ! they whistle ; 'cyclers say. 
 Brother, spin it right away. — 
 This is what abducts me quite ! 
 Steels my sinews, rears my height. 
 Downs my troubles, stirs my pride ; 
 High-metalled steed, is this your ride ? 
 
94- '-MV LOVE," A SPOOPSY POEM. 
 
 ""J'he town recedes — it disappears ! 
 Fields open on my eyes, my ears 
 With sounds viatic ring. 
 On end, with wings, I dance, I fly! 
 O horse, where is thy quick go-by ? 
 Of chafe where is the sting ? 
 
 "MY LOVE," A SPOOPSY POEM. 
 
 BY PROF. HIGHWELL. 
 
 Not as some other wheelers are 
 Is she that to my sole is dear ; 
 Her glorious fabric came from far, 
 Beneath the silver morning star, 
 To get her art in over here. 
 
 Great felloes hath she of her own, 
 
 Which lesser wheels may never know ; 
 
 John giveth them to her alone, 
 
 And fleet they are as any one 
 
 Direction winds may choose to blow. 
 
A HE AD Eli. 95 
 
 But of herself she standeth not, 
 Though many can not half so fair ; 
 
 That simplest duty is forgot, — 
 
 Yet hath she no dim rusty spot 
 That doth not in her nickel share. 
 
 She hath no scorn of common folks. 
 And though she is of other birth. 
 Roundly her axle twirls, and spokes. 
 And patiently she bears the jokes. 
 And rides the Yankee paths of earth. 
 
 Blessing she is ; John made her so, 
 
 And deeds of daily wheeliness 
 Roll from her noiseless as the snow, — 
 Nor will she ever chance to know 
 
 That I 'm a jackass, more or less. 
 
 A HEADER. 
 
 Going leg after leg, 
 
 (As the dog went to Dover) 
 When he came to a stone, 
 
 Down he went over. 
 
96 "GONDOLA" MADE BICYCLE. 
 
 ROTA FELIX. 
 
 BEAUMOUNT & FLEETCHER. 
 
 Come, Wheel, and with thy fleet reprieving, 
 
 Rock me in delight awhile ; 
 
 Let some pleasing roads beguile 
 
 My reflections, so from thence 
 
 They may take an influence 
 All my sours of care relieving. 
 
 Though but a skeleton a-gliding, 
 Life it brings for man or boy ! 
 Walkers suffer long annoy, 
 111 content with any thought 
 In their laggard fancy wrought : 
 
 Be mine the jo)'s that come of riding ! 
 
 "GONDOLA" MADE BICYCLE. 
 
 BY LORD BOYRUN. 
 
 Didst ever see a Bicycle ? For fear 
 
 You have not, I '11 describe it you exactly : 
 
 'Tis an uncovered car that's common here, 
 Steered at the front, built lightly but compactly. 
 
RHYMES OF THE ROAD. 97 
 
 Rode by one rider, not called bicyclier ; 
 
 They glide along the highway looking crackly, 
 Just as a witch clapt on a broom can go it, 
 While some can't make out how it is they do it. 
 
 And up and down the avenues they go, 
 And over the macadam shoot along, 
 
 By day and night, all paces, swift or slow, 
 And round the suburbs here, an able throng ; 
 
 They ply no whip nor spur — and know no whoa. 
 As not to them do woful things belong. 
 
 For all times they maintain a deal of fun, 
 
 Like wedding coaches when the mischief 's done. 
 
 RHYMES OF THE ROAD. 
 
 BY LORD BOYRUN. 
 I. 
 
 Horses we hire no further ; and the rays 
 Of bright wheels make sufficient holidays : 
 Eloping past the green fields, trees and flowers. 
 We, shining like the crawling brook, go by. 
 
98 RHYMES OF THE ROAD. 
 
 Clear as its current ride the glowing hours 
 With a calm vigor, which, tho' to the eye 
 Idlesse it seem, hath its own industry. 
 If from the billowy we learn to dive, 
 'T is bicycle should teach us how to fly ; 
 It bears no flutterers, company can give 
 No fellow aid — alone, man with his wheel must strive. 
 
 II. 
 
 Wheel of the many-twinkling spokes ! whose charms 
 Are all extended up from legs to arms ; 
 Bicycle! though too long boneshaker made — 
 Reproachful term, bestowed but to upbraid — 
 Now Phoenix and a volant miracle. 
 Flashing to view, immense but movable ; 
 Henceforth in all the steel of brightness shine, 
 The least a vaster than in 'Sixty-nine. 
 Far be from thee and thine the name of rude ; 
 Though yet triumphant, be our ways subdued. 
 Our legs most move to conquer as they fly, 
 If wheels and hopes are reasonably high. 
 
 Those roaming wheels, which swift as the gazelle 
 
 So brightly bold go beautifully by, 
 
 Win as they wander, dazzle where they dwell. 
 
TO ABEL ELDER. 99 
 
 SONNETS 
 BY WHEELIAM SHAKESFOKE. 
 
 TO ABEL ELDER. 
 
 Insistere roiis. 
 
 I. (7) 
 
 When from the orient graceful Carrier light 
 Sported his well-turned limbs, each under eye 
 Made image of the new-appearing sight, 
 Serving with gaze his saddled ministry. 
 An thou hadst climbed the steep-up Bicycle, 
 Resuming strong youth in thy middle age, 
 Yet-middling looks to his were semblable, 
 Amending on his steely pilgrimage ; 
 But when of highmost wheel, with wary care 
 Like feeble age," thou reelest from the ray, 
 Thine eyes, 'fore Gad, man ! now perverted are 
 From his high act to seek the nether way : 
 So, thou thyself low-going in thy noon. 
 Look for no rise, unless thou get thee one. 
 
100 THE REASONS WHY. 
 
 II. (i6) 
 
 Then wherefore do not you an airy way 
 
 Make speed to shun this stealthy tiger, Time, 
 
 And ' forty-pound ' yourself against decay ? 
 
 Which means light one of fifty inch to climb ! 
 
 Now stand you on the top of happy cranks, 
 
 And many centric sinews stifHy set, 
 
 A stable horse, would bear your lively shanks, 
 
 Much better than the panting counterfeit. 
 
 So should the hues of life that lift repair ; 
 
 While toilet's pencil, or my truthful pen, 
 
 Neither in phys'nomy nor tract of hair. 
 
 Can draw you like yourself made young again : 
 
 To ride away yourself keeps yourself still. 
 
 And you most live, drawn by your own fleet skill. 
 
 THE REASONS WHY. 
 
 Alio ex Bicycli vertice, 
 
 I. (76) 
 
 Why is my verse so fertile of new jide. 
 So full of levitation and quick range ? 
 
THE REASONS WHY. lOI 
 
 And all the time why do I prance astride 
 
 Of goodliest authors and make compounds strange? 
 
 Why write I still of one (over the same), 
 
 And laud invention in a noted steed, 
 
 With very words in almost every name, 
 
 Showing their worth where higher to proceed ? 
 
 Know ye, big bards, I love to link with you, — 
 
 One great, one small wheel, on the road have led ; 
 
 So all my zest is spinning old song new, 
 
 Speeding again what is already sped. 
 
 Just like the riding rod I daily hold, 
 
 So is my pen con-trolling what is trolled. 
 
 11. (S9) 
 
 Say there be nothing new, but all which is 
 Was old before, should be their brains reviled 
 Who, laboring with invention, bore in this 
 The second burden of a buried child ? 
 O that could record with a rearward look 
 Of many hundred circuits of the sun 
 Show the like image in some antique book, 
 Or prediluvian print in fossil done ! 
 That I might see what in that world made way 
 For the combined meteors of this frame ; 
 
102 TO BISAKEL.. 
 
 What they ascended, if slow or faster the}', 
 Or wheely revolution be the same : 
 Then might I claim from wits of every time 
 The self-same right to reconstructed rhyme. 
 
 TO BISAKEL. 
 
 Caniilenam eandem canens. 
 
 I. (78) 
 
 Often have I invoked thee for my muse, 
 
 And found a rare persistence in the verse, 
 
 AVhere every salient pen serveth my use. 
 
 And under thee our poesy disperse. 
 
 Thy rays that warmed the dumb on high to sing, 
 
 And heavy ambulance aloft to fly, 
 
 Have added wires to the poets' string, 
 
 And given grace to dual wheelery. 
 
 Thou art the guide of that which I compile. 
 
 Fair-spoken wheels and words belong to thee ; 
 
 Of others' works thou dost amend the style. 
 
 Their arts with thy fleet races racy be : 
 
 'T is thou art all my art, and dost advance 
 
 To vie with William my full countenance. 
 
TO BISAKEL. 103 
 
 11. (38) 
 
 How can my mind want matter to invent, 
 While there are books, and thou pour'st into verse 
 Thine own fleet betterment, too highly bent 
 For every vulgar paper to rehearse ? * 
 Then give thyself no care — if aught I see 
 Worthy bestowal, and to gain thy right, 
 Am not so dumb I cannot sing of thee, 
 Who hast thyself given us invention light ; 
 Thou, the tenth Muse, in these times more in worth 
 Than those old nine which my bards invocate. 
 And he still harping on, let him set forth 
 Their subject numbers to outlive his date. 
 If my light-fingering please these carious days. 
 The stealth be mine, but thine the wealth and praise. 
 
 SHAKESPOKE'S EPIGRAM. 
 
 Young friend, for cyclus' sake forbear 
 To bite the dust that 's ever near. 
 Blest is the man avoids the stones. 
 And curst is he that breaks his bones. 
 
 * William's own line; some editors afeardi 
 
I04 BIS MODERN HORSE. 
 
 HIS MODERN HORSE. 
 
 SEE THE " VENUS AND ADONIS." 
 
 Here doth the artisan surpass the hfe 
 
 In Hmbing and proportioning" a steed 
 For art with former horsemanship at strife 
 
 Wherein the breed of metal can exceed ; 
 Making his horse excel the common one 
 In shape, endurance, temper, pace and bone. 
 
 Round-tired, short-headed, handles low and long. 
 Ball bearings all, and treading nothing wide. 
 
 Small weight, short cranks, stiff hollow fork and strong, 
 With shining nickel or enamel hide ; 
 
 All that a horse should be he doth not lack, — 
 
 Nor the great riders for so small a back : 
 
 Ofttimes they range far off from work and cares ; 
 
 Anon they start at racing, all together, 
 To set the wind a pace that now compares, 
 
 So fast they run or fly, with tempest weather ! 
 For 'mid the rushing wires the torn wind sings, 
 And urging treadles dash like frighted wings. 
 
THE BICYCLER J A VAGARY. IC5 
 
 THE BICYCLER; A VAGARY. 
 
 (Writer been taking bomething. ) 
 
 Hearti- and hardiness unite 
 
 To give Bicycler's name a raise ; 
 
 Most fairly seen in the clear light 
 That fills ' excursions of two days.' 
 
 A knightly character he bears — 
 Not that his business office knows ; 
 
 Unfading is the coat he wears, 
 
 If first-class tailor makes his clothes. 
 
 Cock of the walk for treadinsr hi£:h. 
 
 Elation shines upon his face — 
 His coat, I say, is the real dye — 
 
 His steps are levity and grace. 
 
 Inferior horses he disdains. 
 
 Nor stoops to lower walks on earth ; 
 John Taurus' goodly work maintains 
 
 The expanses of his airy mirth. 
 
Io6 CAMPBELL, UNDONE AND OUTDONE. 
 
 The stoutest gent who struts below, 
 When trained to fill a seat above, 
 
 John gives him all he can bestow, 
 His wheeldom of diurnal move. 
 
 Beer shall be lavished at the halt — 
 Methinks from earth I see him rise ! 
 
 Clubbers convulse to see him vault. 
 And shout him welcome to the wise ! 
 
 CAMPBELL, UNDONE AND OUTDONE. 
 
 When oftentimes the young aerial beau 
 Spans on bright arch the glittering wheels below. 
 Why to yon upland turns the 'cycling eye. 
 Whose misty outline mingles with the sky? 
 Why do those tracts of soberer tint appear 
 More meet than all the landscape shining neariV 
 'T is distance sends enchantment to his view 
 And lures the mounted with its azure hue. 
 
ALTA CANENS. 107 
 
 ALTA CANENS. 
 
 TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE SIXTY. 
 BY T. W. O. 
 
 Sweet poets of this move ! 
 
 Who sing, without design. 
 The song of artful love. 
 
 In unison with mine ; 
 These echoing lays contain 
 
 Full many notes of ours 
 Which you ones cannot gain 
 
 With less than boosted powers. 
 
 The wheel of nickeled charms 
 
 Such hearts too seldom love. 
 Although the treadle warms 
 
 And lightens all above. 
 How slow their classic things 
 
 To this our modern lot, 
 High-layrious Mount with springs, — 
 
 And yet they seek them not ! 
 
I08 APOLOGY. 
 
 Bi-writing cannot rest 
 
 Till rhymsters so improve, 
 That, reading and distrest. 
 
 Ye bards will join the move : 
 'T is happy, with its brakes 
 
 Beneath the chastening hand ; 
 But, doubtless, no great shakes 
 
 If you can't understand. 
 
 APOLOGY. 
 
 Quifacitper almm facit per se. 
 
 That which I sing is partly mine, 
 Dear son of Song, remade of thine ; 
 When thou hast learned to ride, shalt see 
 The perfect meaning found by me. 
 
 That song I made, it was not mine 
 When fraught with incense superfine. 
 Till, when thou sang'st it sweetly through, 
 I with my voice sang — making two. 
 
ROTALIS EQUITATIS. IO9 
 
 All which I am, it is not mine : 
 The moon unto the earth doth shine — 
 Not of herself, but every ray- 
 Quotes from a bright One far away. 
 
 NON ASSUMPSIT. 
 
 Young Rollo sat riding a wheel with his foot, 
 
 And he sang, " Will you come on the Flyer ? " 
 Tall middle-aged man had stood hitherto mute. 
 And now turned away, like an indolent brute. 
 And he said, " I'll not go any higher." 
 
 ROTALIS EQUITATUS. 
 
 Oh who can forget the first rides, after learning. 
 
 When wheeling gave life a new edge with its steel ; 
 And the soul, like those cakes made delicious by 
 
 Gave out all its sweets up atop of the wheel ! 
 
 Forth going in beauty from nation to nation. 
 Most lively and fleet its dominion shall be ; 
 
 iBig poets proclaim it the best equitation, 
 
 And to roll ever on like the waves of the sea. 
 
no LIFE ON THE PALE BICYCLE.- 
 
 LIFE ON THE PALE BICYCLE. 
 BOSTON, MAY 30, 1881. 
 
 Walkers attend, where wheelmen join 
 Their annual meet today ; 
 
 Your needs and aptitude combine 
 To hail the vivacious way. 
 
 In heaven the virtuous ride began, 
 When white bicyclic wire 
 
 Among the feather-flappers ran, 
 And strung a bolder lyre ; 
 
 And struck the winged with amaze 
 
 To see new double suns 
 Around the stellar orbits race 
 
 And pass the common ones. 
 
 It filled the island kingdom too, 
 When down to earth it rolled ; 
 
 The size, the hue, and shape were new. 
 And more than Britain could hold. 
 
REJUVENA TED. 1 1 I 
 
 From o'er the sea, with cry " Ahoy ! " 
 
 An impetuous comer ran, 
 An angel one, with eager joy. 
 
 To tell the Yankee man. 
 
 A legion now obey the call 
 
 Where bards supply the song ; 
 " Good wheel and pace " is heard through all 
 
 The League A. W. throng. 
 
 To see life on the narrow trail. 
 
 The walkers will ascend ! 
 Though steam and horse and boots should fail, 
 
 Its race shall never end. 
 
 REJUVENATED. 
 
 But merely to measure 
 
 The road with a soundless 
 Quick whirl is a pleasure 
 
 Ranging antic and boundless : 
 My courting days o'er. 
 
 And my married gone after. 
 The Wheel doth restore 
 
 Me my youth and my laughter. 
 
112 MY CHOICE. 
 
 MY CHOICE. 
 (olden style.) 
 
 The coach or cart to ride I'm loath, 
 Extremes are suited not for all ; 
 
 On steely car, "unlike them both, 
 I surest sit, and fear no fall. 
 
 This is my choice, for me I feel 
 
 No ride is like the quiet wheel. 
 
 I grind no scissors, turn no mill, 
 I bear no goods of any trade ; 
 
 I skim the plain, I climb the hill. 
 But greatest cities I evade. 
 
 And laugh at them in care and pain 
 
 Who render health for golden gain. 
 
 Come up betimes, thou heavy wight 
 That keep'st the lower ways of brick ! 
 
 Rise now and walk the wires light 
 While not too old to travel quick. 
 
 Take to the saddle ere too late, 
 
 True life goes with the rapid gait. 
 
SONNETS, AFTER E. B. B. II3 
 
 SONNETS, AFTER E. B. B. 
 
 I. 
 The aspect of all things is changed, I think, 
 Since first I set my footsteps where the wheel 
 Moves still and firm beneath me as I steal 
 Between the travel and the outer brink 
 Of obvious headers. Now I, once near to sink. 
 Am caught up into health, and leam the role 
 Of life in new scenes, that the draught of dole 
 Me given in wedlock I no longer drink. 
 Praising the engine that I drive and steer. 
 The names of coach and horse are flung away 
 For our high art that shall .be ever here ; 
 And this, this dual song — of yesterday — 
 The ardent poets join, and make appear 
 Bicycle's name set bright in all we say. 
 
 II. 
 My good bicycle ! that hast floated me 
 From the scant walk of earth that I had known, 
 And into many languid hours blown 
 Breath vital, till my visage joyfully 
 Beams out again, as any one can see. 
 Above the pave or road ; my f-risky own, 
 That earnest to one withering and lone, 
 
114 THE WHEEL'S EXPRESSION. 
 
 And rather booked for hearse than mounting thee ! 
 
 Having not made me quite a blooming lad, 
 
 Careful I ride the Safety bicycle, 
 
 Look back upon the trepid time I had 
 
 On the simple wheel, and now, with diction " swell," 
 
 Bear witness here, — over roads good and bad 
 
 That levers and great rake go mighty well. 
 
 THE WHEEL'S EXPRESSION. 
 
 With hammering touch and not deficient sound 
 I strive intently to play up aright 
 What music of our wheeling day and night 
 On keys of thought "and feeling I can pound. 
 Artfully rendering all that rotal round 
 With" octaves of metallic ring and height 
 Which answer quaintly to our ringed flight 
 From the red sidewalks of the city ground. 
 In song my soul dilateth to declare 
 To plodders the true onwardness I feel 
 When riding by myself up in the air ; 
 And while I go it, — as the thunder peal 
 Breaks up its cloud, all troubles vanish there 
 Before my loud apostrophe to wheel. 
 
ROUNDELS, AFTER SWINBURNE. I IS 
 ROUNDELS, AFTER SWINBURNE. 
 
 I. VOICE OF WHEEL. 
 Bicycle is wrought as a ring of the starry sphere, 
 With craft of the light, but the winning of sound 
 
 unsought, — 
 For the art of the ride I should smile were't to pleas- 
 ure the ear 
 
 Bicycle is wrought. 
 Its music is lyra, rewritten of all or of aught — 
 Love, worship, or woe — in resemblance of rapture, 
 
 that clear 
 Fun-fancy can fashion to dwell in the ear of thought. 
 
 A mocking-bard's voice the sound, and ye hearken to 
 
 hear 
 Note answer to note, and many a high strain caught 
 Which mount my design where song as a psalm for 
 
 mere 
 
 Bicycle is wrought ! 
 
 IL IN PARLOR. 
 Outside of the glaze ye are shut in, lying 
 Close from the air, and to ease or ails tied. 
 
Il6 ROUNDELS, AFTER SWINBURNE. 
 
 What troop come swelling, the fine wheels plying, 
 
 Outside ? 
 They will not cease, they come to abide : 
 Halest of this age in brightness hieing 
 Pass and return on silence astride. 
 
 Ye' hear not, but see ye not men as flying 
 In the present that makes from the past that ride ? 
 Will you stay peeping, the joy not trying 
 Outside ? 
 
 III. SECURITY. 
 
 Wheel, as thou wilt, fain would I ride with thee, 
 Now thou canst show, of all that men have built, 
 Some roadster where our souls serene can be — 
 
 Wheel, as thou wilt. 
 Not such asgo in racing rush and tilt 
 Impetuous, but meek seat on mild wheels three, 
 Too low for poets' hope to have me killt ; 
 
 Or Safety two, where I may drive set free 
 From check and strain and dread of getting spilt : 
 So shalt thou give life often much to me, 
 Wheel, as thou wilt ! 
 
A QUESTION ANSWERED. llj 
 
 A QUESTION ANSWERED. 
 (SWINBURNING STYLE.) 
 
 " Of fear and of fate are bicycles fashioned, 
 
 That the heads above them are dire and glum ? " 
 
 Nay, the faces of riders remain unashened, 
 Chilled not with sense of a fall to come ; 
 
 They bear the heart of the bold not craven, 
 'Tis peace around them and grief is far. 
 
 They hear no note from a night-hued raven 
 Of death at the crossing bar. 
 
 Of no iron of doom are two-wheelers shapen, 
 That sometime a rider may seem accurst. 
 
 But the gnawing and weakness of hunger happen. 
 And the throats of the boys are adry for thirst. 
 
 Their seats are as towers from the cares that wither. 
 And seldom is any struck wan by fear. 
 
 An emulous rage for race sets hither, 
 
 And the mode of the wise is clear. 
 
 Scant lives of many wax wide with the might of it. 
 Uprising to rank with the hale and the sound ; 
 
Il8 A QUESTION ANSWERED. 
 
 Spirit and sense go elated on height of it. 
 To compass unlimited miles with it round ; 
 
 The sense is most of a spurring scout-run, 
 The spirit is much like a joy sublime, 
 
 'Of wheel to match and of speed to outrun 
 The speed of the wheel of Time. 
 
 And forth they steer, as a yachting rover 
 For a pleasure raid on the dancing brine. 
 
 And highways carry their high horse over 
 To the meads and furrows of corn and kine ; 
 
 Where the long line halts amid gazing greeters 
 In the blithe bright streets of the village plan 
 
 Perplexed with sense of the strange quietus 
 And height of machines that ran. 
 
 The whirl is left of the town's confusion, 
 On the best of the .wheels of revolving life 
 
 Thro' wind and sun in their wide elusion 
 
 From strife more rude than the seasons' strife. 
 
 For the heart within them of late was busy 
 To loose their souls as a sail unfurled , 
 
 They must needs escape for a while that dizzy 
 Close toil of the weary world. 
 
A SONNET. 
 
 119 
 
 Too full, they say, is the world of trouble, 
 Too tense with work are our walks on earth, 
 
 And we turn for the gain and the relish of double 
 Delight to aspire on our wings of mirth. 
 
 And life grc)ws fervid in air more vital. 
 
 Where often the city's brood fain would flee, 
 
 Where fully the lifts of the ride are requital 
 For falls there may happen to be. 
 
 A SONNET. 
 
 Summa cum laude. 
 
 Like to the leonine sunflower of flowers 
 
 With yellow pride that domineers the sight. 
 
 Or as among ships' signal lamps by night 
 
 Their good revolving planet of the towers, 
 
 O Wheel, thou shinest on this land of ours 
 
 One altogether lively and upright ! 
 
 A feather-weight so fair, such onward powers, 
 
 (Why bear a lantern, in thyself so light ?) 
 
 That oft enamored men of sober blood, 
 
 Their earthly walk too tedious to abide, 
 
 Transported on that seat above the mud 
 
 Maintain a course no horseman can outride. 
 
 Some moan their loss and wish they'd had the grace. 
 
 Not knowing gout, to know this pedal pace. 
 
I20 SONiVETS, AFTER FOREIGN SAMPLES. 
 SONNETS, AFTER FOREIGN SAMPLES. 
 
 I. IN A RIDING RINK. 
 Stay not, with lingering foot, O learner, here, 
 Seek the expansion of the country ride ; 
 Firm be thy step, thy heart will banish fear 
 In brighter scenes this posty pkth denied. 
 Far from the shade of tall and brick abodes, 
 Where stand the suburb mansions of delight. 
 Stay not, but on superior turn/5ike roads 
 Find the best basis of bicycling height. 
 And there to cheer thy firstly toilsome way, 
 See many a coaster glitter down the hill ! 
 Breezes refreshing softly round thee play. 
 Warm sunshine smiles — beware of headers still. 
 Once skilful there, free of beginner's strife. 
 Health is a certainty, and ride is life. 
 
 II. OF SOi^^E ROADS. 
 Selectmen ! why, where'er our rubbers tread, 
 Afflict the road with rocks and ruts like these ? 
 Ah, you — for we have reasonable dread 
 To toil and pant where we should skim with ease • 
 Deserve the frown severe, the language rude. 
 From gentle wheelmen that come out your way ! 
 
SONNETS, AFTER FOREIGN SAMPLES. 121 
 
 Our semi-flyers must travel unsubdued, 
 Like carrier-pigeons, not like birds of prey. 
 Are we to contest new, in toils untried ? 
 No, we have common hinderance defied, 
 And drawn fresh energy from every flight ; 
 But the rough jolts of bumping on the wheel — 
 With such incessant shock vibrating steel 
 Shaky and brittle grows, if no less bright. 
 
 III. A SENIOR'S INTENT. 
 
 Bicycle ride ! more lively than serene. 
 
 Whether in urban streets or rural ways, 
 
 Where health led me with so mercurial mien. 
 
 Winging my feet these five years' fleeting days ; 
 
 I must forbear your heights, and though my heart 
 
 Declines the chances of your harms before, 
 
 'Tis but ambition for a greater part — 
 
 Still strengthening limbs will manage one wheel moie ! 
 
 Let Tricycle through many a future day 
 
 To distant towns this mortal form convey. 
 
 Journeying inland or skirting ocean's wave ; 
 
 Yet my song musical, to memory true, 
 
 On thought's light pedals oft shall fly with you, 
 
 And still. Bicycle, in your praises rave. 
 
122 A RONDEAU. 
 
 A RONDEAU. 
 
 Mens vivida in corpore sano. 
 
 His sportive lyre bicyclist sought 
 To ease his heart with love amort, 
 But drew no music high or low 
 Of charm to heal his hurt — although 
 He took more red wine than he ought. 
 
 Along the strings his ear has caught 
 A strain by wheely angel brought, 
 And sweeps the shallows with its flow 
 His sportive lyre ! 
 
 Life thro' the ringing wires has wrought, 
 Life in our puling poets naught, 
 
 Who welter still in sap and woe ; 
 
 While warm his soul and body glow 
 To strike with renovation haught 
 His sportive lyre. 
 
 Ill fares the man to bodily ails a prey. 
 Whose gold accumulates and joys decay. 
 
URBS B /CYCLIC A. 12$ 
 
 IN "TRINITY" SQUARE, 1878. 
 
 Sicut nobis sit cyclus omnibus. 
 
 Notable days in Boston were " of old," 
 When wheel on wheel of novel riding rolled 
 Before heir moneyed churches and around 
 The multitude, whom chariots of no sound 
 Charmed to a hush of wonder, and the rate 
 And poise they witnessed in bicycle's gait. 
 On the proud towers paused angels, seen by few, 
 Some earnest genuflexions glad to view. 
 And know that drivers of the better horse 
 Were all upright men holding by the cross. 
 
 URBS BICYCLICA. 
 Boston, Boston ! 
 What art thou' the most on ? 
 First riders and a host on 
 Two- wheelers — first dealers, 
 And bards that make loud boast on. 
 
 While the horse agitations depart. 
 And fair ladies in confidence roll. 
 
 Bicycle is the lord of the art. 
 
 And Tricycle right queen, on the whole. 
 
124 ROTA MUSIS AMICA. 
 
 ROTA MUSIS AMICA. 
 
 When I rose to the wheeling, 
 
 My heart full of go, 
 I entreated the song-bards 
 
 For bicycles to blow. 
 To my pleading — no heeding, 
 
 Their silence said No ; 
 That was no kind of answer 
 
 To a heart full of go. 
 
 In a wide quest of song, 
 
 On the heights and below, 
 I caught me their brightest 
 
 Metres, music and glow ; 
 And healing for wheeling 
 
 Their sick notes of woe, 
 Assumed the full cheek 
 
 On our bugles to blow. 
 
 The round years have rolled. 
 Casting some of them low, 
 
 And again there is pleading — 
 To the swift from the slow : 
 
A WORD. 125 
 
 " Ah, Dalty, we're faulty, 
 
 But how could you do so ! 
 We must mount to catch up 
 
 With that heart full of go." 
 
 A MODEST ASCRIPTION. 
 IN THE GREEK MANNER. 
 
 With his sister Muses, 
 Uranian and Hygeian Bisakel 
 A spinning wreath of rose and laurel gave 
 To be my chaplet : they had blown a spirit 
 Bicyclic on my soul, that bade me set 
 Wheels swift and safety-wheels to comic song ; 
 Whereto they made me know the lofty bards, 
 Their styles, firstly for best, ever considering. 
 
 A WORD. 
 
 Bear witness these^ when Time 
 Shall rate my book, that I 
 Of the wheel lover, and fleet poesy, 
 First topped them past my prime, 
 And green in skill, though ripe, on both did fly 
 
126 so^r of hygeia. 
 
 SON OF HYGEIA. 
 
 AFTER THE GREEK. 
 
 Son of Hygeia, wheeled Bisakel, 
 Thou of the potent spell 
 Whose silent magic changeth mortal life ! 
 Thou with the gentle steel 
 Dost proudest knights make feel 
 How poor the snort and champ of horsey strife, 
 And, granting automotive ride to men, 
 Inspire tame hearts, and old turn young agen. 
 
 Over thy wheels is a sure seat for all 
 That they may not down fall. 
 In our full sight some wizard youth rides One 
 Wheel, and no other hath 
 Following on the path ! 
 And in his triumph needs no vile backbone : 
 To all thou givest as their needs may be. 
 Forty to sixty-inch, one, two, or three. 
 
 WrrH horse-car, or by steam, we take the shortest 
 
 route ; 
 The way bicycle leads is a gay roundabout. 
 
A LAMENTATION. 12/ 
 
 A LAMENTATION. 
 
 Alas, the man was getting old, 
 Head rather gray, and heart too cold. 
 Full young the wheel that near inclined : 
 Ah ! this to me by fate assigned? 
 
 The thing, alas, was fair in form — 
 His head was turned, his heart too warm ; 
 He wildly roaming went to ride, 
 And, trying flying, still would slide. 
 
 When heart on art of speed is bent, 
 The smart of haste is accident. 
 Too well the meaning many know 
 Who rashly go, alas ! to woe. 
 
 The end, on wheel so fleet and young, - 
 Needs but the shortest pen or tongue ; 
 Down hill, heels up, he fell too much. 
 At last, alas, he used a crutch. 
 
 Sometimes even riders firstrate 
 Are projected headlong prostrate. 
 
128 " XTRAORDINARY." 
 
 " XTRAORDINARY." 
 
 IV GRADUS AD CCELUM. 
 
 When in a state of trepidation 
 
 We grew averse to the rotal ride, 
 And after much of precipitation, 
 
 More hable to pitch and slide, 
 That was the time for our appearing 
 
 Upon the superior Safety one ; 
 And, rake enough to banish fearing. 
 We mount up serenely, 
 
 Mount up serenely for the run. 
 
 When over roads of a rough formation 
 
 The leading riders carefully went. 
 We got on apace to a situation 
 
 Where some got off for a steep ascent. 
 That was the time for our appearing. 
 
 To show them more advantage still : 
 With links and levers for a gearing. 
 We mount up serenely, 
 
 Mount up serenely any hill. 
 
 When in the realm of imagination 
 Are seen so many feeble flights, 
 
A SONG LET. 1 29 
 
 A safety method of elevation 
 
 Is just the scheme to scale the heights. 
 
 That is the time for our appearing 
 In mutual aid with bards of mark : 
 
 With them the lower regions clearing, 
 We mount up serenely. 
 Mount up serenely like a lark. 
 
 When in a state of incineration 
 
 These bones are powder to inum. 
 Soul will have skipt to a new location. 
 
 Whence come the bright ones who return. 
 That is the time for our appearing 
 
 In Extra shape of the second birth ! 
 With facts not faith to banish fearing, 
 We mount up serenely. 
 
 Mount up serenely from the earth. 
 
 A SONGLET. 
 
 I RODE when yesterday was bright : 
 Today, that joy to be untried, 
 I mourn the mud and cloudy height, 
 The rotal hope although in sight 
 
I30 "HORSE SENSE." 
 
 That some tomorrow soon I ride — 
 Its any falls I must abide. 
 
 Or for tomorrow or today 
 
 Is wheel a grief then ? No, I say ; 
 
 Because I let no future fright, 
 
 And have the wheelman's sure delight 
 
 Of still recalling yesterday. 
 
 The ride unfailing yesterday ! 
 
 JtrVENIS. 
 
 "HORSE SENSE." 
 (OF SOME, BOSTON 1883.) 
 
 'Tis the notion of horse-trotting pride, — 
 Each is welcome to what we enjoy. 
 Whether driving his own, or one let ; 
 But the rights of the wheelmen's ride 
 We will run down and smash and destroy 
 If on Sunday they chance to be met. 
 For the Puritan laws still control. 
 And the horse and his master are sole 
 Lords of road and require the whole. 
 
 While babes, men good or bad go on all-fours ; 
 But afterward divide — to wheel, to horse. 
 
UNSATISFIED. 131 
 
 UNSATISFIED. 
 
 (owing to EMILY P.) 
 
 I SPIN all day from dawn till dark 
 
 Bestriding a phantom pale, 
 And often I out-rise the lark, 
 
 Out-speed the summer gale ; 
 While whether I halt by a cooling spring, 
 
 Or ride with a burning zest, 
 A face that I know is following, 
 
 A voice in my vague unrest. 
 
 She haunts the sunshine and the shade, 
 
 The plain, the hill, the stream. 
 Till I doubt if she be an earthly maid, 
 
 Or only a young man's dream. 
 Astray if rapt with the phantoms bright, 
 
 My life may be truly blest 
 When the homeing heart of the wheeling knight 
 
 Shall possess and be possest. 
 
 JUVENIS. 
 
 0-0 are rings to ride, one runs ahead for mover. 
 The other jumps to pitch the man a header over. 
 
132 ARE YOU READY? 
 
 ARE YOU READY? 
 Are you ready for the meeting 
 
 With bicyclers in the air? 
 Longing for that wheely greeting 
 
 With the handsome many there ? 
 If not ready, if not steady, 
 
 Oh, for that great way prepare ! 
 
 POST ROTAM ARNICA. 
 DRAWN PARTLY FROM "lIFE.*" 
 
 There was a young man in Philadelphia 
 Who thought surely he would be healthier 
 To straddle a wheel 
 And ride a good deal — 
 He will buy him a horse when he's well-thier. 
 
 Such another young man lives in Boston, 
 Who was so exceedingly tost on 
 
 And off of his bike. 
 
 That he got him a trike. 
 Where he finds no erectitude lost on. 
 
 * Also; — 
 
 " Dies erit prsegelida 
 Sinistra quum Bostonia." 
 
WHEEL AND THE YEAR. 1 33 
 
 WHEEL AND THE YEAR. 
 The universe is God rotating, — Oken. 
 
 Sing of the wheel, for it is fleet and comely, 
 
 Whether you have it by the two, or three ; 
 Cling to the wheel for rides abroad or homely, — 
 
 And join the l. a. w., or c. t. c. 
 To gaily move amid the scenes of nature, 
 
 Its joke is easy and its burden hght ; 
 It Ufts you fitly to a godlike stature. 
 
 You of many a holy patent-right. 
 
 Sing of the year now following the olden. 
 
 Around the royal sun to run its race : 
 Ring of the wheels that lately us embolden 
 
 Is rapt with somewhat of ecliptic pace. 
 Shall they not speak of One who rolleth ever 
 
 Upon the orbits vast that night reveals, 
 Where boundless space and time can weary never 
 
 The flight of Him who sits above his wheels ? 
 
 Sing of the wheel as minister of gladness 
 
 Newly to many in the coming year ; 
 Bring to the wheel the phys'nomy of sadness. 
 
 For that is what such rides rejoice to clear. 
 
134 WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 
 
 Tell gentle souls that now Tricycle cometh, 
 The tamer kind that will not scare or maim ; 
 
 While Bicycle, as ever, speeds and hummeth, 
 And hardy bards collaud in loud acclaim. 
 
 Pius Rotator. 
 
 By the same also are most of these : — 
 
 WHEELY THOUGHTS AND EJACU- 
 LATIONS. 
 
 THE FINAL MEET. 
 
 AFTER HAFIZ. 
 
 When the last solemn day of judgment shall break. 
 And all the world's collected raceS quake. 
 On a sixtytwo-inch, transplendent with zeal, 
 Shall be seen the guardian god of the wheel ! 
 To the numberless multitude assembled there 
 This is the mandate that he will declare : 
 Come, all ye bicyclists, be blest on my right ; 
 Go, you faint legg'd ones, and sink from my sight. 
 
 While the wheel holds out to turn. 
 The milest walker may go learn. 
 
WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 1 35 
 
 To me the rolling firmament displays 
 A panorama of God's cycling ways. 
 
 Like treading water is the motion of his limbs, 
 
 Yet swiftly thro' the air the bold two-wheelman swims. 
 
 Wheel is a roadster of so flightful mien, 
 To be high rated needs but to be seen ; 
 And seeing oft, familiar with his pace, 
 We wobble first, then travel, and then race. 
 
 One self-propelling hour whole days outshines 
 Of vapid walkers, or of horse-car lines ; 
 And more true joy bicycler axled feels 
 Than driver with a trotter to his wheels. 
 
 Hereditary horsemen ! know ye not 
 
 Who would be free, themselves must mount the wheel ? 
 
 Like Moses on his mount, the fine 
 Bicyclist cuts a wondrous shine. 
 Until he strikes a rock, and then 
 They are quite different sort of men. 
 
136 WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 
 
 The spacious wheel which here thy mortal eye doth 
 
 see, 
 Hath larger rolled with God from all eternity. 
 
 Soles that are truly blest know much of wheeliness ; 
 Left treadle doth the one, and right the other bless. 
 Soul riseth too with body the hours you ride on high, 
 And hour by hour to both a better hfe thereby. 
 
 The silkworm doth turn to and spin till it can fly. 
 Turn too, O man, or worm be stumpt and outdone 
 by! 
 
 Drive out upon the road, there like a star to be. 
 And wheel in orbit wide of calm celerity. 
 
 One smiling at the wheels, he crieth they are toys. 
 Are they but toys, O man, which change our griefs to 
 
 joys ? 
 Such hasty judgments, from the slow, are strangely 
 
 rife; 
 Shall chick unhatc];ied discourse philosophy of life ? 
 
IVHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 127 
 
 THE UPWARD GRAVITATION. 
 
 'Tis better far than all the elevation 
 That Cometh from the cup of inebriety 
 
 To get high on the wheel of equitation, — 
 
 And there we have the best of much called piety. 
 
 Small is wheel's Winter range, increasing in the 
 
 Spring ; 
 Summer the evening-runs, Autumn long rides doth 
 
 bring. 
 
 Wheel is so swift a thing that twinkling it can fly 
 Down from the highest hill-top in the twinkling of an 
 
 eye. 
 
 Let big wheel be my sun, and little one my moon. 
 Then will my dullest times be made as bright as noon. 
 
 My first and second are much alike, except in size ; 
 My whole upon the road was once a great surprise. 
 
138 WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 
 
 Fair js Aurora's face, but on the wheel more fair, 
 When with arising sun man riseth there. 
 
 0-0 is the bike you are often on top, or 
 
 Tlie remark you will make after coming a cropper. 
 
 Even such is the Xtra or Xspurt to straddle, 
 
 You but add a small thing or two, chiefly a saddle. 
 
 62-INCH the highest is — rare he that knows it ; 
 It takes the lengthy legs to perfectly enclose it. 
 
 Wheels, in fleetest sort to bless us, 
 In a mobile Twain must be ; 
 
 But serenely to possess us. 
 
 They must form a precious Three. 
 
 Though wheel affects us in so many ways. 
 
 It hardly reaches to our soular case : 
 
 Heaven stoops, hell rises, to catch the soul of man. 
 
 Who, doing both, so speeds that neither can. 
 
 In currente rota, qui sedet, pervolat terram. 
 
WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 1 39 
 
 MOLLITER AMBULANS. 
 
 Our airy feet with well known flight, 
 Swift on the twinklings of the wire, 
 
 Run up the hills that heave in sight. 
 And leave the walking world to tire. 
 
 Cleave to the earth, ye booted ones. 
 
 Contented kick your native dust ! 
 While old bicyclists and their sons 
 
 Light-footed tread the wheel they trust. 
 
 'Tis the morning of life gives bicyclical lore, 
 And coming wheels can cast their riders before 
 
 Health and joy and youth returning. 
 Here have fixed their leather seat ; 
 
 With Bisakel our hearts are burning. 
 He is v/ith us when we meet. 
 
 SiDEWALKER creepeth to and fro. 
 His leg is weak, his foot is low ] 
 He hath no lyric song, 
 His short way seemeth long. 
 
I40 WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. 
 
 Even on this wheel come all who can, 
 And leave behind them the old man. 
 
 A TYPE in nature for bicycling souls, — 
 Rivers can only run, great Ocean rolls ! 
 
 PENSIVE IN A BONEYARD. 
 
 Perhaps in this selected spot are laid 
 Some legs once regnant on bicyclic wire. 
 
 Hands that the rod of riding may have swayed, 
 And waked to parody the rotal lyre. 
 
 Each on his narrow seat of porcine hide, 
 The gay forefathers of the future ride. 
 
 Westward the horse Bicycle takes its way ; 
 
 The four-foot one already passed, 
 Now swiftly goes the charmer with the day : 
 
 John's noblest offspring is his last. 
 
WHEELY THOUGHTS, ETC. I4I 
 
 EQUITES ROTARUM. 
 The errant-knights of latter song 
 
 Are ever young and gay ! 
 They pass on leather heights along, 
 
 Companions of the Day. 
 There all their thoughts are rosy bright, 
 
 And all their motions fleet, 
 Their pedal ends in wingy flight 
 
 The flitting treadles beat. 
 
 TYRO'S SOLILOQUY. 
 — Whence this pleasing hope, tTiis fond desire. 
 This longing after rides on bicycles ? 
 And whence this secret dread and inward horror 
 Of falling in the mud ? Why shrinks the soul 
 Back on herself, and starts at nasty croppers ? 
 'T is the Divinity that stirs within us, 
 'T is Bisakel himself points what we 're after, 
 And intimates bicycling unto man, — 
 Bicycling, that so pleasing, dreadful thought ! 
 
 WHE^f thou dost cry for health, the fountain here 
 
 mayst see — ■ 
 Wheel, so thou use it oft, runs with salubrity. 
 
142 PUEM OF THE HIDE. 
 
 POEM. OF THE RIDE. 
 
 A PARODY-MOSAIC. 
 
 BY DALT WHEELMAN. 
 
 Poetica surgii tempestas. 
 
 1. Seated, but erect, I take to the open road, 
 Sturdy, free, the wheel beneath me. 
 
 The long brown path before me, leading wherever I 
 choose. 
 
 2. Allons ! Whoever you are, come travel with me ! 
 Travelling with me, you find what never tires. 
 Omnes ! en masse, Americanos ! Libertad ! Re- 
 
 spondez ! 
 I am he that walks on the rigid and rolling wheel ; 
 I call to the rolling earth and sea, upheld by the 
 
 wheel, 
 Wheel of the wiry quietude ! Wheel of the small 
 
 many spokes ! 
 Slim, trim, glossy, peculiar wheel ! Mad, gentle, 
 
 skeleton, rubber, nickel wheel ! 
 
POEM OF THE RIDE. I43 
 
 Behold the great rondure, all bright from central to 
 extreme — the cohesion of all, how perfect ! 
 
 The fine centrifugal spokes of light, the quick, tremu- 
 lous whirl of the wheels — the two wheels, 
 twain but not twin. 
 
 3. I chant the chant of rotation or ride, a ride with a 
 
 flying flavor ; 
 We have had crawling and perambulating about 
 
 enough. 
 I show that wheel is only development. 
 From this hour, freedom, and a sprightly domination ! 
 From this hour, we ordain ourselves loosed of limits 
 
 and all horse-car lines. 
 Going where we list — our own motors, rotal and 
 
 resolute. 
 
 4. Here is realization, the requisite realization of 
 
 health ; 
 
 Here is a man rallied, and he fires up what he has in 
 him. 
 
 Sublimed upon the zenith of a wheel, I ride the tri- 
 umphal arch of hygienic hilarity. 
 
144 rOEM OF THE RIDE. 
 
 I tread the pedal orbits with plunging feet ; 
 
 I dance and equilibrize on the revoluting stilts ; 
 
 Trampling strong to the hill-tops, and shooting the 
 rapids down. 
 
 My foothold is tenoned and mortised in confidence, 
 
 And I know the amplitude of space. 
 
 Mine is the wheel of the most high, a sixty-incher. 
 
 Earth ! you seem to look for something at my feet ; 
 
 Say, old Stop-not ! what do you want ? 
 
 Far-swooping, whirling Earth, with the trailing satel- 
 lite. 
 
 Smile, for your Bicycler comes ! We it is who balance 
 ourselves, orbic and stellar. 
 
 We must have a turn together — beat the gong of 
 revolution for our rouse and early start. 
 
 5. Long had I walked my cities, my country roads 
 and farms, only half-satisfied. 
 
 I heard what was said of the universe, its immensities 
 of space and time, its orbits of stars and plan- 
 ets, its chronological, geological and astronom- 
 ical cycles ; 
 
 It is middling well as far as it goes, — But is that 
 all? 
 
POEM OF THE RIDE. 1 45 
 
 Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits, my 
 words are words of a questioning, and to in- 
 dicate rotaUty and motive-power. 
 
 I know perfectly well my own legotism ; 
 
 One of that centripetal and centrifugal band, full of the 
 power of the wheely boast, I turn and talk like 
 an engine blowing off steam after a journey. 
 
 6. I rise elastic through all, sweep with the true levi- 
 tation, 
 
 The whirling of wheeling elemental and primeval 
 within me ; 
 
 In a higher walk of life, an unearthly walk. 
 
 That I ride and speak is spectacle enough for the 
 great authors and schools — me imperturbe, 
 aplomb, orotund, turbulent, emerging superb. 
 
 I harbinge, I promulge, I propound haughty and 
 gigantic enigmas. 
 
 I step up to say I am a Chaos, a pied marauder on 
 the rampage ! 
 
 I sound my sarcastic whoop over the bardic habi- 
 tudes — rhyme and metres to the perfect lit- 
 erats of America. 
 
 Do you take it I would astonish? 
 
146 POEM OF THE RIDE. 
 
 Does the sunrise astonish? Does the early milkman, 
 
 rattling over the stones ? 
 Do I astonish more than they? Would you have 
 
 delicate thunderbolts? 
 
 7. I launch forward, I propel the r- ideal man, the 
 
 American of the future. 
 For I see that power is funded in a great bicyclism. 
 What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul except to 
 
 walk free upon a superior bicycle ? 
 Imbued as they — active, receptive, often silent as 
 
 they? 
 They do not seem to me like the old specimens. 
 They seem to me at last as perfect as the animals — 
 
 to that the revolving cycles truly and steadily 
 
 rolled. 
 
 8. O for the paces of animals ! O for the swiftness 
 
 and balance of fishes and the birds ! 
 
 to be self-balanced for contingencies ! 
 
 1 am an ostrich, an albatross, a condor of the Andes, 
 I am tattooed with antelopes and birds all over, 
 
 And have distanced what is behind me fjr good 
 reasons. 
 
POEM OF THE RIDE. 1 4/ 
 
 to cling close to something afar off, something 
 
 precarious and uproarious ! 
 
 To push with resistless way, and speed off in the dis- 
 tance. 
 
 To speed where there is space enough and air enough 
 at last ! 
 
 1 breathe the air and leave plenty after me. 
 
 9. You there, hesitant, limp in the knees, walking 
 
 humbly, lamenting your sins ; 
 Down-footed doubters, dull and excluded ; you are 
 
 eligible ! 
 What have I to do with lamentation? 
 How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat ? 
 I trip forth replenished with serene power on the 
 
 bright ring of ride, the ensemble of the orbic 
 
 frame, the great Biune. 
 On cycles fit for reception I start bigger and nimbler 
 
 lads. 
 This way I am getting the stuff of more elevated re- 
 publicans ; 
 They are tanned in the face by glowing suns and 
 
 blowing winds. 
 Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength. 
 
148 POEM OF THE RWE. 
 
 10. Men of the roily vantage, I salute you ! 
 
 I see the approach of your numberless clubs — I see 
 
 you understand yourselves and me. 
 Vivas to those who are weaned from walking and go 
 
 the many-mileing gait ! 
 I beat triumphal drums with my head, 
 I blow through all my embouchures my loudest and 
 
 gayest music to you. 
 We slip the trammels of space and time, we level 
 
 poise our glittering flight ; 
 Inland and by the sea-coast and boundary lines, and 
 
 we pass all boundary lines. 
 Our swift ordinances are on their way over the whole 
 
 earth. 
 With wingy gait and all ways so prononc6, 
 We roam accepted everywhere. 
 Scouting along exalte as with a fierce magical elixir. 
 Spurning for good the clods the bricks that clung so 
 
 long to the feet of man. 
 
 This with apologies to the Poet of Humanity and 
 America — and so to a more mine one: 
 
CHANTING THE ROUND MIRIFIC. 1 49 
 
 CHANTING THE ROUND MIRIFIC. 
 
 Vox clamantis in bicyclo. 
 
 I. Chanting the round mirific, out with the two 
 emerging, out for a ride, 
 
 Out with the young and older, with the sleek and roily 
 'one, the hygienic horse. 
 
 Hollow, two-sided (both the sides needed,) the noise- 
 less obedient one. 
 
 In itself narrow, its range so wide, so express ; 
 
 I culminate, I move abroad. 
 
 2. To espouse, warily (once wed-linked to a cranky 
 dame tigerish,) to annex anew and for sure, 
 
 My choice for consort was clear at last : 
 
 If that which ran in front go behind. 
 
 And that which went behind advance to the front. 
 
 Not for me the reversal — spinal slope and step-up 
 clean gone ! 
 
 Nor a very facile low wheel, too like the old the shape 
 for bones and bowels shaking ; 
 
 Nor the Yankee Xspurt, or any too fast and fickle one. 
 
ISO CHANTING THE ROUND MIRIFIC. 
 
 For me the Safety and comfort, the Xtraordinaire, the 
 
 levers, the wee walking beams the links, the 
 
 much rake. 
 (Made by Singer & Co. — I one such also, 
 Scooping many into my company.) 
 Uphoist on that the mighty auxiliar, the wheely of 
 
 wheelies. 
 As Ulysses bestriding the log for a sea-horse. 
 But more like an elderly bird aquiline (bawl'd headed' 
 
 perhaps,) I fare forward. 
 With, easy grip and measured tread I run steadily, 
 
 fearless, pressing with perpendicular feet. 
 Chanting at intervals the songs of the risen sons. 
 
 3. I am for all who walk awheel on the wbolf earth, 
 my camerados. 
 
 The weak and slowly wobblers too, but probably more 
 for the high-propt, full-lunged and limber-legged 
 of long trial : 
 
 The trained competitors, the scorchers, with the sibi- 
 lant hum of their raceful wheels ; 
 
 The forthsteppers to the far-stretching circuits and 
 vistas of the winding and undulating ride, 
 
CHANTING THE ROUND MIRIFIC. 151 
 
 Before whom latitude narrows, longitude contracts, — 
 Who stand-sit poised aflight in the saddle, launching 
 there over the world. 
 
 4. I mind yet the crowds held of the old drag-on 
 horsecar, or laggard on the trottoirs — to me 
 they are but torpid somnambules creeping, 
 blinking. 
 
 O the endless herds of the wheelless, my cities filled 
 with the wheelless ! 
 
 Them languished with plodding to uplift and advance, 
 renerve, toughen and expedite. 
 
 To enthuse them to rotality, self-pulsion, erectitude, — 
 knee breeches. 
 
 These many poems I pour, containing the start for 
 each and most ; 
 
 And to supply myself and adepts with songs fit for 
 these mounts ; 
 
 Songs soular and corporal, arrogant, pensive, saccha- 
 rine, satiric. 
 
 Health's inlet songs, loud-lauding, bombastic lays, 
 jocular sublimities. 
 
 Biggest dictionary not sufficing, and six languages 
 
1 52 CHANTING THE ROUND MIRIFIC. 
 
 needed — me too polyglot, putting on too 
 
 much style ; 
 (Any scraps of error, for the linguistic and pluperfect 
 
 literats carelessly leaving) ; 
 High-footed and high-handed, dual, combinate song, 
 
 assuming all — 
 Harp of many strings, songs of great poets made 
 
 perfect. I give and take. 
 I would finish specimens, as nature does, each crystal 
 
 particular polished and precise ; 
 I am no Kosmos, but nature will do for me. 
 Bad form befits not Rota's lines, or men. 
 I never slop over (hardly over) or bite off more than 
 
 I can chew ; 
 I do not my breast thump and bellow like a gorilla 
 
 bard (not much). 
 
 5. Enough : I cease, I pass, contented I repress many 
 things, — 
 
 The melange, the froth and float, the ddbris, the inter- 
 minable catalogue and inventory, the geograph- 
 ical spread, the tireless splurges (me militant 
 and vaunting), the exposd, the tender and sol- 
 emn bawdy-talk, withheld for reasons. 
 
CHANTING THE ROUND MIRIFIC. 1 53 
 
 Whist ! I ride quietly by ; menacing, taciturn, absorb- 
 ing effusing much, I depart. 
 
 Dalt Wheelman. 
 
 Some amende to the master is due here from the 
 refractory pupil: — 
 
 When in a state of puffed laudation 
 
 Soft poets of the period shine, 
 Live souls will hail any emanation 
 
 Of song from genius genuine. 
 That is the time for his appearing, 
 
 Wild Walt whom nature greatly leads : 
 With oaks and pines around uprearing. 
 We look up regardless. 
 
 Look up regardless of the weeds. 
 
 To write in the common effeminate vein 
 Employs mighty little of blood or of brain : 
 Mediocritus mainly intent we behold 
 Not^that books may be real, but that books may 
 
 be sold ; 
 And as head has so little to do with the sale. 
 Many volumes are female expanse in the tale. 
 
154 ^ DUET. 
 
 A DUET. 
 
 SUPER-TRANSLATED FROM A PERSIAN POET. 
 
 Quoth D., in swelling song who tries 
 
 With beams of light from poet-stars 
 To paint it as a fine disguise 
 Upon bicycle's iron bars': ~ 
 
 It plagues you Fogies that I sing 
 New life by forms of metal shine ; 
 
 And naught of roses, love and spring, 
 The azure sky, or ruby wine. 
 
 F. — 'Tis rankly wrong to boast and praise 
 The ignis faf or tallow candle, 
 And of the Sun's all-giving rays 
 No panegyrics ever handle. 
 
 D. — Most like the early sun's award, 
 
 I strike up to the high things round ! 
 Our whizzing wheels I must applaud 
 Above what make the common sound. 
 
 Let bigger bards their lyres attune 
 To wars and woes, and fame and kings ; 
 
EGO; PRIVATE AND POSTHUMOUS. I5; 
 
 And roses, wine, or love and moon. 
 Suit not the steel of wire strings. 
 
 - O poemster wild, how flagrant are 
 Thy carols on unlovely themes ! 
 The Hades' gates are now ajar 
 
 To shut-in you with dismal screams. 
 
 EGO; PRIVATE AND POSTHUMOUS. 
 
 AFTER BOCCACCIO ON DANTE. 
 
 Dalty am I, Parodia's son, who grew 
 
 By others' genius (but no style unsure — 
 
 All elegance composite and mature). 
 
 My theme mere bicycle to common view. 
 
 Thro' paths pedalian and Castalian flew 
 
 My rolling fancy, up Parnasse secure. 
 
 For long time shall my gay sublime endure, 
 
 Fit to be read of men and women true. 
 
 Abby my widow-spouse's dear front name ; 
 
 Beloved by me — whom from her side she thrust ! 
 
 Her beauteous sons' cantankerous ways to blame. 
 
 B. Bi. C. housed my axle, hold my dust 
 
 It will what time cremation inurns the same. 
 
 Or my wronged shade will feel it most unjust. 
 
IS6 TO THE " POEMSTER." 
 
 I INCLUDE here the following few scurrilous pieces 
 because the young penholders seem to have adopted my 
 method, though only to misstate it and abuse the metho- 
 dist — the travelling elder : — 
 
 TO THE "POEMSTER." 
 
 You that go gathering at every spring 
 
 Which from the veins of old Parnassus flows, 
 
 And many a flower of rarest hue that blows 
 
 Near thereabout into your versing wring ; 
 
 You that big-dictionary plunder bring 
 
 Into your rhymes, running in rattling rows ; 
 
 You that some poet's long deceased woes. 
 
 Or new-bom sighs, on dizened wires do string ; 
 
 You take wrong ways, those crooked turns be such 
 
 As do betray a want of inward touch ; 
 
 And sure at last stolen goods do come to hght. 
 
 But if you have a hope ro raise your name 
 
 To ride upon "a sixty-inch " of fame. 
 
 Stealing be qiiit, and then begin to write. 
 
 Sidney. 
 
TO A CERTAIN PARODIST. I $7 
 
 TO A CERTAIN PARODIST. 
 
 When decked in alien garb you shine, 
 
 And tune your oft felonious notes, 
 You seem a trickster of the Nine, 
 
 Or Davis Jeff in petticoats. 
 And surely when your song you fling, 
 
 Your saucy song with subtle art, 
 Your pen's an iron-tonic thing 
 
 And often frets the gentle heart. 
 
 You've showed yourself a sinful creetur. 
 You've murdered poets and stole their metre. 
 Have dared the -best 'of all to alter 
 For sonnets in your cycling psalter, — 
 And for your pains deserve a halter. 
 
 HOSTIS. 
 
 True people cry 
 
 To him, — O fie! 
 Why don't you make your own ? 
 
 Good reason why. 
 
 Just like the Bi., 
 He cannot stand alone. 
 
IS8 CLOSING HYMN. 
 
 CLOSING HYMN. 
 BY PIUS ROTATOR. 
 
 Nearer, my Wheel, to thee. 
 Nearer to thee ! 
 
 E'en though it be a pig- 
 Skin seateth me. 
 
 Still all my song shall be. 
 
 Nearer, my wheel, to thee, 
 Nearer to thee. 
 
 Though, like a blunderer, 
 
 I have gone down. 
 Hind wheel right over me. 
 
 Because a stone 
 Got in my track — I'd be 
 Nearer, my wheel, to thee. 
 
 Nearer to thee. 
 
 I know the way to climb 
 Steps unto saddle, — 
 
 All scapes thou sendest me. 
 On I skedaddle j 
 
CLOSING HYMN. 1 59 
 
 All the more reckon me 
 Nearer, my wheel, to thee, 
 Nearer to thee. 
 
 Even my walking thoughts 
 
 Bright with thy praise, 
 Out of my stony griefs 
 
 No h— 11 I'll raise ; 
 So by my rubs to be 
 Nearer, my wheel, to thee. 
 
 Nearer to thee. 
 
 And when on jbyful wire 
 
 Cleaving the air. 
 Bruises and bumps forgot, 
 
 Onwards I tear. 
 Sure all my song shall be. 
 Nearer, my wheel, to thee. 
 
 Nearer to thee ! 
 
 Since when a warbling eagle wheeled among birds, 
 Night-outing owls are not accounted song-birds. 
 
 END. 
 
Postscript. — Reader, you and I have herein disagreed extremely over 
 some things (you mostly in the wrong) ; let us now make it up over the 
 wheelman's drink, 
 
 A POT OF ALE. 
 
 BY MALT WTTMAN. 
 (See Ritsoii's ''Select Collection.") 
 
 To light up the rays of mirth in the face. 
 
 And make a man's state to be happy and hale, 
 
 Not drunken nor sober, but neighbor to both, 
 There is nothing will serve hke a pot of good ale. 
 
 Be he lowly and poor, a plowman or boor. 
 So much will its flattering humor prevail. 
 
 He speaks no less things than of lords and of kings, 
 If he touch but the foam of a pot of good ale. 
 
 And the good old clerk whose sight waxeth dark, 
 And ever he thinks the print is too pale. 
 
 He will see every letter, and say service better, 
 With a glaze on his eyes from a pot of good ale. 
 
 The poet divine, who cannot reach wine. 
 Because that his money too often doth fail, 
 
 Will hit on the vein to make a rare strain. 
 
 If he be but endowed with a pot of good ale. 
 
Thus it helps speech and wit, and it hurts not a bit, 
 But rather doth further, the virtues' morale ; 
 
 Thereof you may know if a little I show 
 The high moral parts of a pot of good ale. 
 
 Truth will do it right for it brings truth to light, 
 And many bad matters begin to unveil ; 
 
 For men to their drink will say what they think — 
 Tom Tell-troth lies hid in a pot of good ale. 
 
 And next I allege it gives courage an edge ; 
 
 Even he that by nature recoils like a snail. 
 Will swear and will swagger, and out with his dagger. 
 
 If he buckle his belt on a pot of good ale. 
 
 Each soldier of Britain, as all will admit, 
 
 A dozen or more souping Frenchmen can wale ; 
 
 He makes 'em afeard, for he Hquors his beard 
 With the valorous dash of a pot of good ale. 
 
 O Ale, a3 alendo — to drink and commend. 
 That I had but a mouth as big as a whale ! 
 
 For mine is too scant to supply all I want. 
 
 Or resound worthy praise of a pot of good ale.