Here in the Spring twilight, sprawling and slithering,
Down the way to the colliery comes the pit bus;
Inside it a scrum of labouring men,
Close packed, inchoate:
Good fellows enough, average Englishmen;
But in the dim light of one wretched lamp
Their faces are blurs, and their bodies writhe,
Shifting and twisting in one working mass,
Like the torn bowels of some horrid beast
Hurt unto death; which, dragging its inwards,
Crawls, growling and whimpering,
Hither in agony home to its lair;
Eager to hide away deep in the dark;
Where it will stretch itself,
Snapping impotent jaws, gnawing the earth;
Waiting in misery surcease of pain.