The Road

Out beyond Aldgate is a road, And a broad, Clean, noble thing it runs, For the sun's And wind's and man's delight, And the high stars at night. There go Jewesses And Poles and Russ and these Pale-faced sons, Daughter of Thames and Paul's Betwixt walls and high walls Of sooted brick, ugly turned. A hard life, hardly earned; Routine that galls, Being so cunning turned. Seldom marvellous Comes down tremulous, Or steady on that East is light increased. Through smoke-fog or river mist. . . . Never fades the sun Out in pageants that stun The heart from talking thereon. Always something mars Magnificence from stars. From strange faces and thunder Men must draw wonder: Thunder Of trams and buses crammed, Or Saturday-night damned- Up, seething, dodging, Grumbling, laughing, over-busy Crowd in Mile End crammed; Or in one hour of joys When football plays Marvellous music on these jigging heart-strings, And one lucky kick brings Battle-winning in a Niagara of noise - Or some furtive Trick of professionalism Plunges a crowd into Hell's Own tumult and scorn and hot-alive Furious cataclysm - The referee quells. Or in sight of a painted Pace, through the tainted Smoke-blue atmosphere Of Music-hall, Cinema, Where happy Tom Parker Or Chaplin would grin him a Further defiance of consequence here, Or in drinkings of beer, Or eatings of strange fish Or shelled things from barrows; Stewed eels, winkles: - Roast pea-nut mingles Well with the whole. Or in sight of fallen horses Or axle-broken wheeled things The market-gardener brings Or the hawker his cabbages, Some Essex husbandryings For London's vast maw. Or fire-engine's law Of free-way when the quickest sees Smoke or sparks rising In places surprising And rings in fears' ecstasies. For quick horseless carriages, Brass-helmeted heroes - But it might be advertising. Anyhow folk live there And daily strive there, And earn their bread there, Make friends, see red there, As high on the clean hills Where soft sea-rapture fills The gladdened lungs. And young souls are fleshed there And tyrants immeshed there As in Athens or Ukraine, And the heart hurts the brain Or the spirit is lashed there, And thought is as vain, Hope constant, and smashed there, As away a day's journey by train.