The lines which bring the expressions are:
“The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts,
At having the landscape marred with the artless paint,
Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong”
The city folk complaints that these stalls with signboards are just like spot or stain on the scenic beauty of the landscape.
The poor farmers pleaded for some costumers to come by them and purchase some of their goods or even ask their prices. But no one comes.
They have set up their shed or shop near roadside to catch up the sight of the people who used to pass from there.
The poet shows the double standards of the government and the social service agencies who promise them to change lot of things and will bring some good changes for them but no one do anything for them. The poet calls them “greedy good doers” and “beneficent beasts of prey”, who “swarm over their lives”. Also he says “.....enforcing benefits
That are calculated to soothe them out of their wits,
Ans by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day,
Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.”
The poet says that the poor farmer who set up their shops to the roadside suffer from childish longing. They always keep waiting for the customer, or to hear the sound car stopping by them to buy something or to even ask prices of their goods but all their waiting, patience and efforts go in vain.
The lines are:
“Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear
The thought of so much childish longing in vain,
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,
That waits all day in almost open prayer”.