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Home: Poetry: William Blake: The Chimney-Sweeper
| THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER |
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a poem by William Blake
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- 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, and 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, and that very night,
- As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! --
- That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and 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, and let them all free;
- Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
- And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
- Then naked and 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, and never want joy.
- And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
- And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
- Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:
- So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
| "The Chimney-Sweeper" is reprinted from Songs of Innocence and Experience. William Blake. London: Basil Montague Pickering, 1866. |
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