<h3><SPAN name="7">THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER</SPAN></h3>
When my mother died I was very young,<br/>
And my father sold me while yet my tongue<br/>
Could scarcely cry ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’<br/>
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
<br/><br/>There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,<br/>
That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said,<br/>
‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare,<br/>
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’
<br/><br/>And so he was quiet, and that very night,<br/>
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—<br/>
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,<br/>
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
<br/><br/>And by came an angel, who had a bright key,<br/>
And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;<br/>
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run<br/>
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
<br/><br/>Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,<br/>
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:<br/>
And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,<br/>
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.
<br/><br/>And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,<br/>
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.<br/>
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:<br/>
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
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