Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/684

 Waifs and Strays

(French poet, 1854-1891)

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 smell 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—

Sigh with low voices like a prayer, Bending toward the light, down there Where heaven gleams

—So eager that they burst their breeches, And in the winter wind that screeches Their linen streams!