The Ice
HER day out from the workhouse-ward, she stands,
A grey-haired woman, decent and precise,
With prim black bonnet and neat paisley shawl,
Among the other children by the stall;
And with grave relish eats a penny ice.
To wizened toothless gums, with quaking hands
She holds it, shuddering with delicious cold;
Nor heeds the jeering laughter of young men—
The happiest, in her innocence, of all:
For, while their insolent youth must soon grow old,
She, who’s been old, is now a child again.
