The Motor-Lorries

They're coming -- twenty or thirty, an outspun throng Of grey machines, none hard on the other's heels. You hold your breath till all are past: it feelsAs if the gathering loudness, lunged along,And then the diminuendo thundersong Of each grey bulk on elephantine wheels Were sobs of one great heart, gaspèd appealsBy irresistible iteration strong;-- Or piston-strokes whose rhythm obeys the pulse Of some Necessity-made-visible, Some grimly lustrous engine, errorless,Inhuman. Six and thirty! They convulse The countryside ... Is this an interval? Or is it the end? O aching emptiness!