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Home  »  The Poetical Works by William Blake  »  The Chimney-sweeper

William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908.

Songs of Experience

The Chimney-sweeper

A LITTLE black thing among the snow,

Crying ‘’weep! ’weep!’ in notes of woe!

‘Where are thy father and mother, say?’—

‘They are both gone up to the Church to pray.

‘Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil’d among the winter’s snow,

They clothèd me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

‘And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and His Priest and King,

Who make up a Heaven of our misery.’