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2.1.9.2: Songs of Innocence- The Chimney Sweeper

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    82977
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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 was last modified on Mon, 01 Feb 2021 04:28:27 GMT and 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, and Laura Ng (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.