Songs of Innocejice 97
The Chimney Sweeper
When my mother died I was very young, i 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, 5 That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd : 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, 9 As Tom was a sleeping, he had such a sight! — That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack, Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black. And by came an Angel who had a bright key, 13 And he open'd 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, 17 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, 21 And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm : So if all do their duty they need not fear harm. In the first issue of the Songs of Innocence this plate is found printed as recto or verso to ' The Divine Image,' as recto to the first plate of ' Spring,' or as verso to ' Nurse's Song.' This poem was first printed in ordinary type in James Montgomery's Chimney-sweeper' s Friend and Climbing-boy's Album (1824) from a copy supplied to the editor by Charles Lamb.
'weep!] No apostrophe in orig. 5 Dacre] Toddy jVt J, Montgomery
(Ch, Lamb).
