The Chimney Sweeper: A little London

black thing among the snow BY WILLIAM BLAKE

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

A little black thing among the snow, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe! And mark in every face I meet
"Where are thy father and mother? say?" Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
"They are both gone up to the church to
pray.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
Because I was happy upon the heath,
In every voice: in every ban,
And smil'd among the winter's snow,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And because I am happy and dance and
sing, And the hapless Soldiers sigh

They think they have done me no injury, Runs in blood down Palace walls

And are gone to praise God and his Priest

and King,
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage
hearse