These faces in the crowd are ghostly;
Many petals on a wet black branch.
The author Pound (1885-1972) is a famous American poet and critic, and one of the founders of Imagist poetry. He advocates using vivid, accurate, implicit and concise images to express concrete things, and this song "In a Subway Station" is the masterpiece of Imagist poetry.
I remember the teacher said that the original poem had more than 500 lines. Later, he always felt bad, and finally changed it to two sentences and became a peerless classic.
P.S. I also took an elective course in college.