Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A LOAFER, by JOHN DAVIDSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A LOAFER, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I hang about the streets all day
Last Line: A phantom voice that cries by rote.
Subject(s): Discretion; Idleness; Pride; Laziness; Sloth; Indolence; Self-esteem; Self-respect


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 to know that still I go
Alive about a living land.

For, far in front the clouds are riven;
I heard the ghostly cry,
As if a still voice fell from heaven
To where sea-whelmed the drowned folks 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.





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