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.

In Piccadilly spirits pass:
   Oh, eyes and cheeks that glow!
Oh, strength and comeliness! Alas,
   The lustrous health is earth I know
From shrinking eyes that recognise
   No brother in my rags and woe.

I know no handicraft, no art,
   But I have conquered fate;
For I have chosen the better part,
   And neither hope, nor fear, nor hate.
With placid breath on pain and death,
   My certain alms, alone I wait.

And daily, nightly comes the call,
   The pale unechoing note,
The faint "Aha!" sent from the wall
   Of heaven, but from no ruddy throat
Of human breed or seraph's seed,
   A phantom voice that cries by rote.