A Loafer

I hang about the streets all day,

At night I hang about;

I sleep a little when I may,

But rise betimes the morning's scout;

For through the year I always hear

Afar, aloft, a ghostly shout.

My clothes are worn to threads and loops;

My skin shows here and there ;

About my face like seaweed droops

My tangled beard, my tangled hair;

From cavernous and shaggy brows

My stony eyes untroubled stare.

I move from eastern wretchedness

Through Fleet Street and the Strand;

And as the pleasant people press

I touch them softly with my hand,

Perhaps I know that still I go

Alive about a living land.

For far in front the clouds are riven

I hear the ghostly cry,

As if a still voice fell from heaven

To where sea-whelmed the drowned folk lie

In sepulchres no tempest stirs

And only eyeless things pass by.