Waifs and Strays

Black in the fog and in the snow, Where the great air-hole windows glow, With rounded rumps, Upon their knees five urchins squat, Looking down where the baker, hot, The thick dough thumps. They watch his white arm turn the bread, Ere through an opening flaming red The loaf he flings. They hear the good bread baking, while The chubby baker with a smile An old tune sings. Breathing the warmth into their soul, They squat around the red air-hole, As a breast warm. And when, for feasters' midnight bout, The ready bread is taken out, In a cake's form; And while beneath the blackened beams, Sings every crust of golden gleams, While the cricket brags, The hole breathes warmth into the night, And into them life and delight, Under their rags, And the urchins covered with hoar-frost, On billows of enchantment tossed Their little souls, Glue to the grate their little rosy Noses, singing through the cosy Glowing holes, But with low voices like a prayer, Bending down to the light down there, Where heaven gleams. —So eager that they burst their breeches, And in the winter wind that screeches Their linen streams.