Artwork: ELFrance
In railway halls
In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic,
They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time, like the blank clock. No, I shall wave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing-tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore. – There is no consolation, no, none, In the curving beauty of that line Traced on our graphs through History, where the oppressor Starves and deprives the poor. Paint here no draped despairs, no saddening clouds Where the soul rests, proclaims eternity. But let the wrong cry out as raw as wounds This time forgets and never heals, far less transcends.
Stephen Spender
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