The Man In The Bowler Hat

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man: The man who sat on your right in the morning train: The man who looked through like a windowpane: The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting Morning pipe smoke. I am the man too busy with a living to live, Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch: The man who is patient too long and obeys too much And wishes too softly and seldom. I am the man they call the nation's backbone, Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay: The Man they label Little lest one day I dare to grow. I am the rails on which the moment passes, The megaphone for many words and voices: I am the graph diagram, Composite face. I am the led, the easily-fed, The tool, the not-quite-fool, The would-be-safe-and-sound, The uncomplaining, bound, The dust fine-ground, Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round