On a Motor-Bus at Night

(Oxford Street)

The hard rain-drops beat like wet pellets

On my nose and right cheek

As we jerk and slither through the traffic.

There is a great beating of wheels

And a rumble of ugly machines.

The west-bound buses are full of men

In grey clothes and hard hats,

Holding up umbrellas

Over their sallow faces

As they return to the suburban rabbit-holes.

The women-clerks

Try to be brightly dressed;

Now the wind makes their five-shilling-hats jump

And the hat-pins pull their hair.

When one is quite free, and curious,

They are fascinating to look at—

Poor devils of a sober hell.

The shop-lamps and the street-lamps

Send steady rayed floods of yellow and red light

So that Oxford street is paved with copper and chalcedony.

(Sunday Morning)

The cripples are going to church.

Their crutches beat upon the stones,

And they have clumsy iron boots.

Their clothes are black, their faces peaked and mean;

Their legs are withered

Like dried bean-pods.

Their eyes are as stupid as frogs’.

And the god, September,

Has paused for a moment here

Garlanded with crimson leaves.

He held a branch of fruited oak.

He smiled like Hermes the beautiful

Cut in marble.