From the Bodleian broadside collection, Harding B 13(226):

[Note: The other song on the same sheet describes deaths due to the collapse of a factory chimney in Bradford on Dec. 28, 1882. This suggests early 1883 as a probable date for the broadside.]


POOR LITTLE JOE

1. While strolling one night thro' London's gay throng,
I met a poor boy; he was singing a song.
I could see by his face that he wanted for bread.
Although he was singing, he wished himself dead.
I spoke to that poor boy out in the snow.
He'd no place of shelter and nowhere to go,
No mother to guide him; in the grave she lies low.
Cast on the wide world was poor little Joe.

CHORUS: In the streets he will wander, forgot by the gay.
With a tear in his eye he will kneel down and pray.
He'd no friend but his maker; his parents were dead.
Poor Joe he was dying by inches for bread.

2. A carriage rolled by with a lady inside.
She gazed on poor Joe her own darling child.
Joe followed the carriage; she had not one smile,
But I gazed on his face and I saw that he cried.
As I looked at this boy, I thought it was odd.
Is this poor ragged urchin forgotten by God?
Then I saw by the gaslight which shone on the snow,
The pale deathly features of poor little Joe.

3. Those that were wealthy, they heeded him not.
Poor Joe the street Arab, how sad was his lot!
He knew not his father; he had died long ago.
Such was the sufferings of poor little Joe.
I spoke to him kindly; it made his heart glad.
Although he was ragged, he was grateful, poor lad.
With tears in his eyes, he was thinking, I know,
Of his mother and father, that poor boy Joe.

4. The light had gone out; the clock had struck one,
When home came a policeman whose duty was done,
And it seemed by the sound of his dull heavy tread
As though he was seeking the starving and dead.
"Oh, what is the matter?" the people they said.
It was poor little Joe; on the steps he lay dead.
With his face turned to heaven, all covered with snow,
The angels are waiting for poor little Joe.

[Verse 2 seems garbled to me. For one thing, it doesn't follow the rhyme scheme of the other 3 verses. Also, the line "She gazed on poor Joe her own darling child" seems to contradict the earlier information that Joe's mother was dead. Other versions of the story say the woman in the carriage paid scant attention to Joe because she was preoccupied with her own child, presumably warm and well fed, in the carriage with her. This makes more sense, but the point is lost in the present version.

[Another thing bothers me: The narrator injects himself into the story: "I spoke to that poor boy"—so why didn't he help Joe?]