Determinedly peppered with signs,
The omnibus ambles with curiosity.
Southampton Row, Malborne Road,
Charing Cross--
These names have no relation
To the buildings they partition
If one mutters, "I shall go to Euston Road, "
Imagination is relieved of all errands
And, decently ticketed, enters the omnibus.
If one muttered, "I shall go to protesting angles,
Surreptitiously middle-aged,
And find a reticent line to play with, "
One would violate
The hasty convenience of labels
And seriously examine one's destination.
If poplar-trees, brief violets and green glades
On any country road had each received
An incongruous name--Smith's Tree,
C. Jackson's Clump, or Ferguson's Depression--
And city streets had never known a label,
Most poets would have turned their fluid obsession
On lamp-posts and the grandeur of ash-cans.
It would be grimly realistic now
To write about a violet or a cow.