HYMN OF THE HIGHWAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 91, 8 July 1927, Page 21 (Supplement)

HYMN OF THE HIGHWAY

There are winding roads through the gentle hills Where the lithographic ltine, With contented eyes, view the daffodils From an advertising sign; Where the poster painter’s graphic art Has replaced bucolic chores With the glad-man’s verb And the ad-man’s blurb In the billboard out-of-doors: “Sehnitzelbank Cheeses The Quality Pleases!” ‘‘Clothing on Credit. Your own Terms? You Said It!” “The New Fleur-de-Lis Room in Flanagan’s Tea-Room Serves Popcorn to Crunch on, Tip-top Corn to Munch On— The Purest a Tourist Could Possibly Lunch On!” •Freak chairs, unique chairs and squeaking antique chairs, Tables with gate-legs, ornate Pegs and straight legs, Shriek forth from placards to flivvers and Packards In dingles on shingles of once ceremonial Mansions now certified “Grade-A Col- “ For Him Who Looks Smarter—The Beacon Hill Garter.” ••For Jolly Old Cronies—McSchultze’s Bolognies.” • ••The Triodyne, Whyodine, Reflexing lodineRadio’s New Sets That Get Massachusetts In ’Frisco—A Feat That Is Equalled By Few Sets!” The farms and the farming the silos and silage Are hidden by tyre signs: “Guaranteed Mileage!” “Avoid All Delays and Let Hennessey Truck It.” (No vestige remains of the old hokum bucket.) “Detour at Next Corner for Maison Rebecca, The Roadhouse Distinctive, the Motorist’s Mecca.” One can’t feast one’s eyes on the lovely horizon; The highways are buy-ways—“Trv Beau Brumnvell Ties On.” To the sun-lit trails, where we keep our My roadster, let us fly, Where the posters croon to the motorists A commercial lullaby; Where the picnic parties pant for air On their soothing Sunday rides. As they creep for miles Through the steep detiles Of our billboard countrysides —’’Life.”