Bicycle Song (1897)

With a rush, and a whirl, and a nameless pace,
Let your bicycle spin from the brow of the hill,
And your spirit exult in the madness race,
Though it end at the foot in a crashing spill.

For the throbbing intense from a passionate glow
Of a moment alone is far better, ah me!
Than the years untold of a tame life slow--
Take the hill with a rush of your bicycle free.

For the rush gives a zest and the fiery thrill
Which the slow and the timid never can know
Let your bicycle whirl, with a fig for a spill,
For the end will come though the pace be slow.

At the vale of life's hill doth the grave yawn grim,
For the cycle of time in its downward rush--
With the rider pale end a world growing dim--
Let the rush be intense ere the cere-cloth hush.

Though it end in the vale and the ceer-cloth cold,
Ah ! the ending will come wilth the pace dead slow ;
Let the life then he full with a fulness bold,
Ere its cycle doth stop, never more to go.

CLARENCE O.

Notes

From the NSW Newspaper The Goulburn Herald 1 Oct 1897 p. 3.