Читать книгу Hazards - Wilfrid Wilson Gibson - Страница 18

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Against the stream of shoppers whose eyes are set,

Regardless of all else, on the display

Of opulence behind the burnished glass,

And heeding naught of them, he takes his way—

An old man in a long and bulging coat,

His wardrobe and his larder all in one,

And a slouch-hat that for full fifty years

Has sheltered that bowed head from rain and sun.

In faithful dateless rags of weedy green,

Through the bright-coloured throng of women dressed

In faithless fashion’s momentary freak,

Indifferently he trudges, walking west.

He hardly sees the throng; and naught to him

Are those resplendent palaces of glass;

And they whose eyes look on their hearts’ desire

Have not a glance to spare him as they pass—

That timeless figure trudging on, to whom

The world is but a road that every day

Brings the grave nearer—what is he to them,

The butterflies that flutter by the way?