From the geyser ventilators <br />Autumn winds are blowing down <br />On a thousand business women <br />Having baths in Camden Town <br /> <br />Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, <br />Steam's escaping here and there, <br />Morning trains through Camden cutting <br />Shake the Crescent and the Square. <br /> <br />Early nip of changeful autumn, <br />Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors, <br />At the back precarious bathrooms <br />Jutting out from upper floors; <br /> <br />And behind their frail partitions <br />Business women lie and soak, <br />Seeing through the draughty skylight <br />Flying clouds and railway smoke. <br /> <br />Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones, <br />Lap your loneliness in heat. <br />All too soon the tiny breakfast, <br />Trolley-bus and windy street!<br /><br />John Betjeman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/business-girls/
