Spender, Stephen. "In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic".
Summary
- the speaker sadly informs about ruined beggars who survive rather than live in the streets
- refuses to assume the poetic pose of rendering them as beautiful birds on a "singing tree" when they are not
- traces the suffering back to history, finds "the oppressor" who starves the poor, and lets his anger be more and more freely expressed
- ends with an urge to the reader not to ignore the deprived ones but to let their oppressor suffer
Analysis
- free verse, unrhymed yet melodic
- the motif of Time: the searching back in history, the concluding warning that time does not relieve or even forget suffering, etc.
Basics
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Author
Spender, Stephen. (1909 - 1995). -
Full Title
Untitled, the first line is used for identification. -
Form
Poem.
Works Cited
Spender, Stephen. "In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic". Collected Poems. 1928 - 1985. London: Faber and Faber, 1990.