I’m the wandering son with the nervous feet, That never were meant for a steady beat; I’ve had many a job for a little while, I’ve been on the bum and I’ve lived in style; And there was the road, stretchin’ mile after mile, And nothing to do but go. So, beat it, Bo, while your feet are mates; Take a look at the whole United States; There’s the little fire and the pipe at night; And up again when the morning’s bright; With nothin’ but road and sky in sight, And nothin’ to do but go. So, beat it, Bo, while the goin’s good, While the birds in the trees are sawin’ wood; If today ain’t the finest for you and me, Then there’s tomorrow that’s going to be, And the day after that, that’s comin’, see, And nothin’ to do but go. Then beat it, Bo, while you’re young and strong; See all you can, for it won’t last long; You can tarry for only a little spell, On the long, gray road to Fare-Ye-Well, That leads to Heaven or maybe Hell, And nothin’ to do but go.[59] “Away from Town,” by Harry Kemp, is a vivid picture of the springtime yearning that the hobo feels to be off to the country after spending the winter in the city’s slums. Not all tramps who feel, with the passing of winter, the urge to move, are enticed from the “gaunt, gray city” in search of “country cheer,” but a goodly number love the grass and shade and a season in the “jungles.” It is the same call that makes truants of school boys and fishermen of staid business men. High perched upon a box-car, I speed, I speed today; I leave the gaunt, gray city some good, green miles away, A terrible dream in granite, a riot of streets and brick A frantic nightmare of people until the soul turns sick-- Such is the high, gray city with the live green waters ’round Oozing up from the Ocean, slipping in from the Sound. I’d put up in the Bowery for nights in a ten-cent bed Where the dinky “L” trains thunder and rattle overhead; I’d traipsed the barren pavements with pain of frost in my feet; I’d sidled to hotel kitchens and asked for something to eat. But when the snow went dripping, and the young spring came as one Who weeps because of the winter, laughs because of the sun I thought of a limpid brooklet that bickers through weeds all day, And I made a streak for the ferry, and rode across in a dray, And dodged into the Erie where they bunt the box cars round. I peeled my eye for detectives, and boarded an outward bound. For you know when a man’s been cabined in walls for part of a year, He longs for a place to stretch in, he hankers for country cheer.[60] POEMS OF PROTEST