"I'm hungry, man, hungry, My clothes are rags and I am cold; You say I'm young -- just a boy -- That cannot be; I'm tired, old." Ah, yes, it seems I can remember now. Faintly -- But it's so long ago; "Man, I'm hungry, spare a dime." What makes it so, This drumming in my ears? It seems Like wheels on rails, freights -- freights All night in rakish broken dreams. And then, there's dawn, pale -- pastel, A glimpse of purple hills and trees; But can it be that I am home? A fragrant wind across the seas Of ripened grain -- And I -- or was it I --? Trudging down a furrow, turning sod, Feeling dawn, hearing birds, knowing God -- I guess I'm thinking someone else's thoughts; They're not mine -- strange. But there's the sun Across the box-car floor, Now I know -- just a bum. There's a pain beneath my belt -- A crust of bread, or just a crumb! "God, mister, I'm hungry and I'm cold -- No -- you say I'm young -- I'm old." Why, the man I thought was I was killed -- So long ago. His soul was crushed by wheels on rails, His manhood fell along macadam trails; But that became freights -- freights -- Night -- day -- night. . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN: THE FIRST DAY: THE LEGEND OF RABBI BEN LEVY by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW COQUETTE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH WRITTEN ON THE LEAVES OF A FAN by FRANCIS ATTERBURY LINES TO MR. WYNCH ON HIS FORTH-FIFTH BIRTHDAY by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD A FARM NEAR ZILLEBEKE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 38. TO ONE NOW ESTRANGED by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT SONNET ON LIFE by BROOKE BOOTHBY TO THE LORD LOVE (AT THE APPROACH OF OLD AGE) by KATHERINE HARRIS BRADLEY |