Bloomsbury Square
I walk round Bloomsbury Square.
Bright sky over Bloomsbury Square;
Bright fluttering leaves
Between the sober houses.
I carry my morning letters,
Some telling of lives spoiled and cramped,
Some telling of lives hopeful and gay,
Some full of yearning for London
And our wider life.
In Bloomsbury Square
The worms of a little moth
Are spinning their Cocoons,
Weaving them out of bright yellow silk
And bits of plane bark
Into strong, comfortable houses.
But hundreds of them
Have wandered on to the iron fence
And go wearily wandering,
Spending a little silk here
And a little silk there,
And at last dropping dead from weariness....
“Our wider life”—
That is our wider life:
To wander like blind worms
Spending our fine useless golden silk
And at last dropping dead from weariness.
Blue sky over Bloomsbury Square;
Bright fluttering leaves
Between the sober houses.
Epigram
Rain rings break on the pool
And white rain drips from the reeds
Which shake and murmur and bend;
The wind-tossed wistaria falls.
The red-beaked water fowl
Cower beneath the lily leaves;
And a grey bee, stunned by the storm,
Clings to my sleeve.