NOTHING

He was a luckless devil who used to come
Around the big town where I had my home;
Young, reddish, weakly, dirty and ill clad,
Forever shamefaced... Another gone to the bad!
One winter day some hunters found him dead
In a little creek that near my garden led,
As, singing, with their hounds they tramped along...
The papers that he had they searched among,
But nothing found... The local judges made
Inquiry of the night watchman, but he said
That he knew not a thing of the deceased;
And Pérez and Pinto, neigbors, not the least.
A young girl said he might have been insane,
Some wandering wastrel seeking food in vain;
A man who heard their chatter saw a joke
And tried to laugh... Well, they were simple folk!
Over the dead man's corpse the sexton let
A few clods fall; then rolled a cigarette,
Pulled down his broad-brimmed hat, and went his way...
After the clods, no one had aught to say!...