Classic Poem

I often drift, on fancy's wondrous stream,
Far out into the vagaries of a dream,
And wonder what the ancients had been like
Had they the bike.

Think of big Hector tied up by the heel
Tight to the step of strong Achilles' wheel;
And Dad Aeneas scorching out of Troy
Behind his boy.

See Aristotle with a humped-up back
" Peripateting " on a four-lap track;
And Socrates a-pedaling for his life
From his sharp wife.

If Alexander had a wheel, would he
Have cut so wide a swath in history?
Or spent his youth like modern royal sons
In century runs?

Just fancy Julius Caesar (if you will)
A coasting down the Capitolean hill;
Or Cleopatra touring by the Nile
In royal style.

Can your imagination dwell on Cain
Cycling the world in spite of wind and rain?
Or on our mother Eve (I do not jest)
In bloomers dressed?

It seems to me that if the chosen race
Had some speedy man to make the pace,
'Twould not have taken forty years to reach
The promised peach.

The world went different then; but what's the odds?
They didn't have the bike; they had the gods
No gods rule us (the change I rather like);
We've got the bike.