How should they appraise you,
who walk up close to you
as to a mountain,
each proclaiming his own eyeful
against the other's eyeful.

Only time
standing well off
shall measure your circumference and height.

AN OLD WORKMAN

Warped... gland-dry...
With spine askew
And body shrunken into half its space...
Well-used as some cracked paving-stone...
Bearing on his grimed and pitted front
A stamp... as of innumerable feet.

TO LARKIN

Is it you I see go by the window, Jim Larkin--you not looking
at me nor any one,
And your shadow swaying from East to West?
Strange that you should be walking free--you shut down without light,
And your legs tied up with a knot of iron.

One hundred million men and women go inevitably about their affairs,
In the somnolent way
Of men before a great drunkenness....