The Ice

The Ice written by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

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       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.

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