Street Urchin Poem by Jim Scallan

The street urchin selling matches
Matted hair and tattered clothes
A face of pasty grey.
Trying simply to survive
And see his sixth birthday.

His mother is just across the road
With her barrow of dark green,
As they make their way down Grafton Street
Always there but seldom seen.

The mist rolls in and they are gone,
Or were they ever there?
As I walk past Trinity College gate
And hear the song upon the air.

I could not see anyone singing
For there was no one in sight,
Only the long lost souls of Dublin
On a misty summer night.

Crying cockles, and mussels,
Alive, alive-O.