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2.1.9.2: Songs of Innocence- The Chimney Sweeper

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    Songs of Innocence: The Chimney Sweeper

    Songs of Innocence: The Chimney Sweeper License: Public Domain William Blake

    When my mother died I was very young,

    And my father sold me while yet my tongue

    Could scarcely cry "'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"

    So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

    There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head

    That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,

    "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,

    You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

    And so he was quiet, & that very night,

    As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!

    That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,

    Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

    And by came an Angel who had a bright key,

    And he opened the coffins & set them all free;

    Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,

    And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

    Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,

    They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.

    And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

    He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

    And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark

    And got with our bags & our brushes to work.

    Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;

    So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

    This page titled 2.1.9.2: Songs of Innocence- The Chimney Sweeper is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anita Turlington, Matthew Horton, Karen Dodson, Laura Getty, Kyounghye Kwon, Georgia, & Laura Ng (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.