The girl who knew at twenty-one
She was too strong and pure for marriage
Is pregnant, and hoping for a son
To join the girl in the baby-carriage;

The seven-year-old who in the drab
East End dreamed of the jockey’s speed
Is happy to drive a taxicab
Now that he has six mouths to feed;

And of course the boy at the public school,
Born to an ancient name and grand,
Remained a simpering heartless fool
And became a solicitor, as he planned.

Some find that they cannot fight free
Of the usual domestic messes,
Some put on quiet misery
Thoughtlessly every day, like glasses;

And the last, most cherished mystery,
How I have grown to what I am,
Is stripped in the documentary
To the logic of a diagram:

Urge endowed by the mindless gene
Colliding with hopeless circumstance
Is all our various lives have been,
Mathemat ...

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