A Tramp

Where are you going,

Walking down the street,

Pushing that old barrow

Through sun, rain or sleet?

Were you ever young

With friends, maybe a sweetheart?

You sort through dustbins.

Could you have felt Cupid’s dart?

You knock on a door for water,

On another for milk and tea;

You drink your tea on the pavement

In the shade of a roadside tree.

What made you take to the road,

To walk through your life like this

Alone? Have you no one

In the world you miss

On your long treks, no one

Who awaits your return? Where

Can you go when you have no friends,

No loving comfort? Do you despair?

What’ll be your end?

Death under some wayside hedge,

Or in a prison cell, perhaps?

What first drove a wedge

Between you and us?

You’ll go on your lone way

Towards Eternity. Who’ll

Miss you when you reach your last day?