THE FATE OF THE WINTER RIDER.
(By a young lady aged fourteen).
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through a lonely village passed
A youth, who rode 'mid snow and ice
A two-wheeled thing of strange device—
A Bicycle.
His brow was sad, his eye below
Flashed like his bicycle's steel glow,
While like a silver clarion rung
A bell, which on the handle hung—
Of the Bicycle.
In cosy sheds he saw the light
Of bicycles well cleaned and bright;
Along the road deep ruts had grown,
And from his lips escaped a moan—
"My Bicycle!"
"Try not that road," the old man said,
"'Tis full of holes, you'll break your head;
The farm pond, too, is deep and wide;"
But loud the bicyclist replied,
"Rot! Bicycle!"
"Beware the oak-tree's withered arm,
Beware the holes, they'll do you harm!"
This was the peasant's last good-night;
A voice replied, "Don't fear, all right—
Vive Bicycles!"
At break of day, as in a brook
A passenger did chance to look,
He started back, what saw he there?
His voice cried through the startled air,
"A Bicycle!"
A bicyclist, upon the ground,
Half buried in the dirt, was found
Still hugging, in his arms of ice,
That two-wheeled thing of strange device,
The Bicycle.
There in the twilight cold and grey,
Helpless, but struggling, he lay,
While, now no longer bright and fair,
His bicycle lay broken there—
Poor Bicycle!
Whizz; the Christmas number of The Bicycling Times, 1880.