a vagabond…life

we all must have heard if not seen vagabonds, homeless wanderers aimless and mostly penny-less ,roaming throughout the lands. wherever their feet may take them,a life subject to no restriction people who do not have an identity credit cards , bank accounts ,cars ,or property , the feed themselves with whatever luck may give them and go where their fate takes them,

if seen from another perspective they are both pitiable and worthy of being jelous of , A person about whom nobody knows of, when was he born what did he do throughout his life, how he passes his life without all the comforts and neccesities of life,what does he do throughout the day and most importantly..
What does he feel about himself and the world around him ?   a world which constantly ignores him ,
Where does he get the courage to mock at the world and its ways? when he has actually no means to support himself ..

A person just like us ,spends time in this world and vanishes one day without achieving anything,without leaving behind any thing or at times without a proper funeral, A man without identity without dreams.. no family to trace  back to

And mysterious are the reasons why he became such, a person like us, he too must have had a story.

but looking upon him he seems a person of freedom, mocking and refusing the conventional way of life and moving on and managing with whatever life gives him, and manages to sleep and eat at places unthinkable. a man not afraid of death or for that matter anything .

I happened to come across an article about  “ THE LEATHERMAN ” (see the article on wikipedia-  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherman_%28vagabond%29)   perhaps the most famous vagabond of all time, A man dressed in full leather clothing,he spent his time living in a cave his identity is yet unknown,
he never told anyone about his past and where he came from and when he died his only possesion a prayer book was recovered from him.

A poem by RL stevenson truely captures the essence of a vagabond…

  Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river –
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –
Warm the fireside haven –
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even!

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.