"The Man In The Bowler Hat"

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticeable man: 
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man you looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke. 
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom. 

I am the man they call the nation's backbone,
Who am boneless - playable catgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow. 

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face. 

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round


Written in the 1940's by A.S.J. Tessimond (1902-1962)




Late this evening at Oxford Circus tube station.