The Man In The Bowler Hat

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man: 
The man who sat on your right in the morning train: 
The man who 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 castgut, 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 


Submitted by Stephen Fryer 

Arthur Seymour John Tessimond