Humming and creaking, the car down the street Lumbered and lurched through thunderous gloam Bearing us, spent and dumb with the heat, From office and counter and factory home: Sallow-faced clerks, genteel in black; Girls from the laundries, draggled and dank; Ruddy-faced labourers slouching slack; A broken actor, grizzled and lank; A mother with querulous babe on her lap; A schoolboy whistling under his breath; An old man crouched in a dreamless nap; A widow with eyes on the eyes of death; A priest; a sailor with deepsea gaze; A soldier in scarlet with waxed moustache; A drunken trollop in velvet and lace; All silent in that tense dusk ... when a flash Of lightning shivered the sultry gloom: With shattering brattle the whole sky fell About us, and rapt to a dazzling doom We glided on in a timeless spell, Unscathed through deluge and flying fire In a magical chariot of streaming glass, Cut off from our kind and the world's desire, Made one by the awe that had come to pass. |