Petrol Speaks.

“Speeding along a radio beam in the stratosphere at 1,000 miles an hour, it will take the busy man a little more than an hour to fly from Australia to New Zealand in A.D. 2,000.” —Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

I am the force that sets the pace where the roaring aeros fly.
Mine is the pulse that beats the time where the cars go racing by;
Soul of the hauling motor-van, life of the skyward ship,
Time stands back to the petrol sweep and the mighty petrol grip.
I am a tale a maiden spun to an Eastern king of old,
The Magic Carpet wove from dreams and out of space unrolled.
I am a madman's babblings and a wise man's long despair;
I am the Vision mystics saw in the Angels of the Air.
Swifter than swallows ever flew I drive the aeroplane;
Only to lightning I give way, for lightning sets the main;
But I will challenge the lightning yet at flash of its highest volt,
For I am Petrol, yet unknown, and God's own thunderbolt!

—John Barr.