The Chimney-Sweeper
William Blake
1757 to 1827
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When my mother died I was very young,
And father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
There’s little Tom Dacre, 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 cannot spoil your white hair.’
And so he quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, had such a sight!—
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked in coffins of black.
And by came an angel, 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 in the sun.
Then naked and white, all their left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in wind:
And the angel told Tom, if he’d be good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and want joy.
And so Tom awoke, and we rose the dark,
And got with our bags and our to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was and warm:
So, if all do their duty, they not fear harm.
From Songs of Innocence