| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Ghost-Bereft (1901)
III. A Long Day | | By Jane Barlow (1857–1917) |
| | (A Villanelle)
I’M thinking all this day she may be dead, | |
| (The holly-laden child that slum-ward hies), | |
| Because I took away her bit of bread. | |
| She’d hid it in the wall beside her head, | |
| That she might reach it easily where she lies: | 5 |
| I’m thinking all this day she may be dead | |
| For want of it. ’Twas but a little shred, | |
| But, ah, she’s weak, and if she starves and dies | |
| Because I took away her bit of bread, | |
| I’ll wish I’d choked. For since good-bye we said, | 10 |
| And then the cold was dark, before sunrise, | |
| I’m thinking all this day she may be dead. | |
| But here’s a penny at last, and now instead | |
| I’ll bring the very biggest roll it buys, | |
| Because I took away her bit of bread, | 15 |
| Straight home to her, that’s waiting safe in bed, | |
| No fear. Yet till I’ve seen her with my eyes, | |
| I’m thinking all this day she may be dead, | |
| Because I took away her bit of bread. | | | | |
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