| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Ghost-Bereft (1901)
IV. Outside the Toy Shop | | By Jane Barlow (1857–1917) |
| | | BESIDE the door they stand, anear the pane | |
| Tricked with toy-wares. It is a dapple-grey | |
| In smooth round wafers dight, and lifts alway | |
| One prancing foot from grass-green board upta’en. | |
| An urchin he, oft met down alley and lane, | 5 |
| Half lost in his wide old rags; agrin to-day, | |
| Because he still with fearful joy dares lay | |
| A stroking finger on that furry mane. | |
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| He tastes his perilous pleasure like a bird | |
| Of quick small feet and wary eye, that comes | 10 |
| To peck strewn fragments, flown at breath scarce heard. | |
| You smile among the hedgerows. In the slums | |
| You think: When flits this child-glee lightly stirred, | |
| Shall manhood’s craving miss even these poor crumbs? | | | | |
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