3 AUGUST 1985, Page 26

Bloomsbury Square

Walking from King's Cross one day Where St Pancras lifts her red brick Spires to the leaden sky I thought of the unbending Typhoid dead who lie bitterly nearby.

Unable to control the sadness Crossing those diseased parishes, Every bell tolled harder till I Arrived at Bloomsbury Square, Appreciated its ratios of Window to wall, its orderliness; Forgot the carts heaped with sons, The crossed and uncrossed doors, And in the museum's shadow mused That it takes an old square to know one.

John A. Clarke