The crowds have gathered here by the paddock gates

And racing silks like the flags of foreign states

Billow and snap in the sun,

And thoroughbreds prance and paw the turf, the race

Is hotly contested, for win and show and place,

Before it has yet begun.

The ladies’ gowns in corals and mauves and reds,

Like fluently-changing variegated beds

Of a wild informal garden,

Float hither and yon where gentlemen advance

Questions of form, the inscrutable ways of chance,

As edges of shadow harden.

Among these holiday throngs, a passer-by,

Mute, unremarked, insouciant, saunter I,

One who has placed

Despite the tumult, the pounding of hooves, the sweat,

And the urgent importance of everybody’s bet—

No premium on haste.