Classic Poem

Breasting the tide of the traffic the " Dreadnought " comes,
Beribboned and gay, the first of the holiday brakes
Brimful of broken old women, a parish's mothers,
Bearing them out for the day from grey alleys and slums —
A day in the Forest of Epping grown green for their sakes.

Listless and stolid they crouch, everlastingly tired,
Mere bundles of patience outworn, half-deaf and half-blind,
Save only one apple-cheeked grannie more brisk than the others
Who, remembering with youth in her heart and the old dreams desired,
Sits kissing her hand to the drivers who follow behind.