The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1898-04-01
THE TRAMP's LAUREATE.
steve Hammer. n Professional, Tells
of the Wundercr.

steve Lnmmcr. a Professionnl. Tells
of the Wunderer.
Buffalo Express.
you are charged with being a tramp, y
said the magistrate DO you plead guilty?"
ut gives me pleasure to plead guilty to
that charge your honor. / am a tramp from
the word go. and I'm as proud of it as a
father is OF his first-horn.'
Where's your homer
Give me something easy.
Thereupon Steve was sentenced to spend ten
DAYS in tue penitentiary. Before he went out
he had moment with Doorman Maloney, and
this is what he said:
Here's a poem. You'll see it's signed The
Wandering khymester-that s name Lone
Star Frawley of Denver gave me ten years
ago, when wrote an ode to his whiskers.
copied this poem on last night, ana doh
want IL to be printed. I'll tell you why.
want that and some others I've got to be my
posthumous work, understand? nsure
they'll win out in time TO come
The poem was entitled The Song OF
Penniless Man" and read as follows
The countries are few that l haven't been
through;
I've sailed every sea on the map;
I've served as sailor, been mate on
whaler;
Been Known both as COLONEL and cap.
I've iourreyed to Rome AMI called Cairo my
home
I've sirolled on the Champs Eysee;,
I've been to Algiers, stayed in London for
years,
have lived in the slums of Bombay.
I've carried a pack across the Rockies and
I've worked as a cabby in Cork;
I've travelled alone on the hunks OF the
hhone,
And have begged in the streets of New
York.
I've murdered and plunder'd and looted and
blunder'd,
I've slept in the dales of Dundee:
I've Travelled in trains DER Americas plains,
I've ferried a scow on the Spree.
I've camped In the rain in the mountains Of
SPAIN
Been threatened In Baluchistan;
/ served in corps in the Crimean war,
And ! lived with the thieves of Milan.
L sc lived in tho Highlands. have been on the
islands
That speckle the Indian seas;
I've seen the Soudan and the heart of Japan.
And have touched at the New Hebrides.
I've worked in the mines of the sweet Apen-
mines,
I've sweltered in torrid Muscat;
I've man freeze In the bleak Pyrenees,
And have been zip on Mount Ararat.
I've crossed the Sahara, Two been to Bokhara,
I've lived as Greek, | have seen Mozam-
bique.
And have stepped on the Island of Man.
I shipped on craft ond rode days on a raft
In the rush OF laundering sea;
was tried for spy and was sentenced to die |
BY court on the coast OF Gree.
| was caught many times in the midst of my
crimes
/ have spent many seasons in jail;
was next to the chief where each man was |
thief
And We robbed either man or the mail.
I've had every ILL., from nepbritis to chill,
| lay with a stroke In Key West.
injured my spine and IL got out of line,
And once got "A ball in my chest
'ye been at the board of tho Brittany lord
I've dincd at the best of cafes:
we eaten portion that caused a contor-
ton;
I've gone without eating for days.
was horn In Bcrln--the result of sim
| was raised by a woman called Lii;
was tortured by buns in the heart of the
slums.
And was taught TO lie, loot and kill.
was yet in my teens when quilted these
scenes
And started to wander Instead:
delight in the strife of wanderers life
And I'll wander until am dead,