An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum by Stephen Spender

Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.

Like rootless weeds, the hair torn rpund their pallor;

The condition of the children is mentioned. They are described like unwanted rootless weeds which are far away from the bright and gusty waves of prosperity and fortune.  Their hairstyle adds to their shabbyness.

The tall girl with her weighed down head. The paper seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted , unlucky  heir 

Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,

The girl in the classroom has her head down in lethargy and paleness wheareas the boy who is as thin as a paper has  rats like scary eyes. There is another boy who has taken a genetic disorder from his father which has resulted him to have twisted  and stunted bones. 

His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class

One unoted , sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,

Of squirrel's game, in tree room, other than this.

At posterior   of the classroom is a sweet young boy who dares to dream in this bleak classroom.  He dreams of a squirrel's game in a tree room. 

On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head,

Cloudless at dawn, civilised dome riding all cities.

Belled , flowery , Tyrolese valley. Open handed map

Awarding the world it's world. And yet, for these 

Children, these windows, not this map, their world,

Sour cream indicates the colour cream or dirty white. Describes the poor dull and ill equipped environment of the classroom.  The wall were painted long ago by donations and since then no attention has been given to them. We see the neglect these children face. It adds to the dull ambience. 

The walls of the classroom are decorated with the pictures of Shakespeare, building with domes, world maps and beautiful valleys. All these contrasts with the world of these children in slum. High quality education is incongruous here, the buildings and domes are examples of civilised world, the world unknown to them. The world map is irrelevant to them because the slums, their world can't be located by them. Beautiful valleys and rivers are meaningless as they have polluted sky to watch from the broken window panes. They don't understand the Austrian Alpine province of the Tyrolese valley either.

Where all their future's  painted with a fog.

A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky

Far far from rivers, capes and stars of words.

Children's future is blurred and uncertain.  Their economic condition is deprived of basic necessities of life. For adventure they don't have any river, cape, stars etc rather they have a narrow street encapsulated within a polluted sky.

Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map is a bad example,

With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal---

For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes

From fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these children 

Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel 

With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.

All of their time and space are foggy slum

So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.

For these children Shakespeare is of no use and a map more fictitious than anything.  Ships  represent capitalism. Sun represents each new day and love  tempting them to have it big in this capitalistic society, these children on the contrary slyly turn turn into withdrawal due to fog of uncertainty to endless night of unending poverty. The children sit on waste slag heap and their bones can be seen through their skins and they are wearing steel spectacles so they are blind to see anything but gloominess.

All of their time and space are foggy slum.

So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.

Their life of uncertainty starts to retreat here only. All time  space is a a life of uncertainty till the end of this life.

Unless , governor, inspector, visitor,

This map becomes their window and these windows 

That shut upon their lives like catacombs,

Break O Breakopen till they break the town

And show the children to green fields, and make their woyld

Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues

Run naked into books the white and green leaves open 

History theirs whose language is the sun.

The poet wants the children of slums to venture into the outside world, beyond the boundaries of their slums and experience a better present and future life. The elementary slum school doesn't serve any purpose with it's poor infrastructure and disinterested sudents.