Under the hive-like dome the stooping
haunted readers
Go up and down the alleys, tap the
cells of knowledge-
Honey and wax, the accumulation of
years-
Some on commission, some for love of
learning,
Some because they have nothing better
to do
Or because they hope these walls of
books will deaden
The drumming of the demon in their
ears
Cranks, hacks, poverty-stricken
scholars,
In pince-nez, period hats or romantic
beards
And cherishing their hobby or their
doom
Some are too much alive and some are
asleep
Hanging like bats in a world of
inverted values,
Folded up in themselves in a world
which is safe and silent;
This is the British Museum reading
room
Out on the steps in the sun the
pigeons are courting,
Puffing their ruffs and sweeping
their tails or taking
A sun –bath at their ease
And under the totempoles-the ancient
terror-
Between the enormous fluted Ionic
columns
There seeps from heavily jowled or
hawk-like foreign faces
The guttural sorrow of the refugees
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