The Metropolitan Railway

BAKER STREET STATION BUFFET

Early Electric! With what radiant hope

    Men formed this many-branched electrolier,

Twisted the flex around the iron rope

    And let the dazzling vacuum globes hang clear,

And then with hearts the rich contrivance fill’d

Of copper, beaten by the Bromsgrove Guild.

Early Electric! Sit you down and see,

    ’Mid this fine woodwork and a smell of dinner,

A stained-glass windmill and a pot of tea,

    And sepia views of leafy lanes in PINNER,—

Then visualize, far down the shining lines,

Your parents’ homestead set in murmuring pines.

Smoothly from HARROW, passing PRESTON ROAD,

    They saw the last green fields and misty sky,

At NEASDEN watched a workmen’s train unload,

    And, with the morning villas sliding by,

They felt so sure on their electric trip

That Youth and Progress were in partnership.

And all that day in murky London Wall

    The thought of RUISLIP kept him warm inside;

At FARRINGDON that lunch hour at a stall

    He bought a dozen plants of London Pride;

While she, in arc-lit Oxford Street adrift,

Soared through the sales by safe hydraulic lift.

Early Electric! Maybe even here

    They met that evening at six-fifteen

Beneath the hearts of this electrolier

    And caught the first non-stop to WILLESDEN GREEN,

Then out and on, through rural RAYNER’S LANE

To autumn-scented Middlesex again.

Cancer has killed him. Heart is killing her.

    The trees are down. An Odeon flashes fire

Where stood their villa by the murmuring fir

    When “they would for their children’s good conspire.”

Of their loves and hopes on hurrying feet

Thou art the worn memorial, Baker Street.