Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

The speaker rails against the relentless forward motion of time and events—“the wheel of the world” that keeps turning regardless of individual desire. The wish for a “reverse gear” frames modern life as a machine: progress is automatic, impersonal, and difficult to stop or undo. Read in a Londonian key, it can suggest fatigue with struggle and change, a longing to return to an earlier state, or a protest against the social and economic forces that grind on without mercy. The profanity (“Darn…!”) underscores frustration and powerlessness in the face of inevitability.