Outcasts. 

 THE night rain, dripping unseen, Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands. The river, slipping between Lamps, is rayed with golden bands Half way down its heaving sides; Revealed where it hides. Under the bridge Great electric cars Sing through, and each with a floor-light racing along at its side. Far off, oh, midge after midge Drifts over the gulf that bars The night with silence, crossing the lamp-touched tide. At Charing Cross, here, beneath the bridge Sleep in a row the outcasts, Packed in a line with their heads against the wall. Their feet, in a broken ridge Stretch out on the way, and a lout casts A look as he stands on the edge of this naked stall. Beasts that sleep will cover Their faces in their flank; so these Have huddled rags or limbs on the naked sleep. Save, as the tram-cars hover Past with the noise of a breeze And gleam as of sunshine crossing the low black heap, Two naked faces are seen Bare and asleep, Two pale clots swept and swept by the light of the cars. Foam-clots showing between The long, low tidal-heap, The mud-weed opening two pale, shadowless stars. Over the pallor of only two faces Passes the gallivant beam of the trams; Shows in only two sad places The white bare bone of our shams. A little, bearded man, pale, peaked in sleeping, With a face like a chickweed flower. And a heavy woman, sleeping still keeping Callous and dour. Over the pallor of only two places Tossed on the low, black, ruffled heap Passes the light of the tram as it races Out of the deep. Eloquent limbs In disarray Sleep-suave limbs of a youth with long, smooth thighs Hutched up for warmth; the muddy rims Of trousers fray On the thin bare shins of a man who uneasily lies. The balls of five red toes As red and dirty, bare Young birds forsaken and left in a nest of mud—      Newspaper sheets enclose Some limbs like parcels, and tear When the sleeper stirs or turns on the ebb of the flood—       One heaped mound Of a woman's knees As she thrusts them upward under the ruffled skirt—      And a curious dearth of sound In the presence of these Wastrels that sleep on the flagstones without any hurt. Over two shadowless, shameless faces Stark on the heap Travels the light as it tilts in its paces Gone in one leap. At the feet of the sleepers, watching, Stand those that wait For a place to lie down; and still as they 

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