A frequenter of our late streets,
This object of scoffing and jeers;
When shunned by streams of passers-by,
He’d speak to stray dogs and pigeons
And stab his fingers at the sky;
A sad sight, a nasty bother;
A sight-seer of our squalid ways –
Sign of sad times, said another;
So he was last seen, it is true,
With spittle in his scraggly beard,
Struggling hard in the pavement sleet –
To tie the laces of his shoe.