Close to her breast, in her thinly clad hands;
A martyr's courage her soul enfolds,
And a guardian angel near her stands.

She shudders oft as she passes by
Some staggering form, whose ribald curse
Seems, 'mid the storms of that stormy sky,
To make the loneliness ten times worse.

Now on the icy pavement she stands,
Now is plunged deep in a drift of snow,
Now she is rubbing her freezing hands
Scarcely knowing which way she must go.

She thinks of the past, the long dark past,
And blights that follow a drunkard's child,
And the tears she strive's to check fall fast,
And turn to ice in that night so wild.

For we all know how, in the darkest shade,
Dreams of the sunniest light will come
To one in a foreign hospital laid,
No words so dear as, "My home, sweet home!"

And Ethel sees visions of sunny bowers
Where once she played with the ring-doves mild,
'Mid the piercing blast she can scent the flowers
She plucked with joy when a little child.

Then she starts in fear, and a nameless dread,