T H E DIVINE IMAGE / 85

The Chimney Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"1
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

5 There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head

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,

10 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,

And he open'd the coffins & set them all free;
is 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,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
20 He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark

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.

1789

The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,

All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

5 For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,

Is God, our father dear:
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,

10 Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
1. The child's lisping attempt at the chimney sweeper's street cry, "Sweep! Sweep!"
90 / WILLIAM BLAKE

Holy Thursday
Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?

5 Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

10 And their fields are bleak & bare,
And their ways are fill'd with thorns;
It is eternal winter there.

For where-e'er the sun does shine,

And where-e'er the rain does fall,
15 Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

1794

The Chimney Sweeper

A little black thing among the snow
Crying " 'weep, weep," in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father & mother? say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

5 "Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow;
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

"And because I am happy, & dance & sing,

IO They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."

1790-92 1794

Nurse's Song
When the voices of children are heard on the green
And whisperings are in the dale,
The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,
My face turns green and pale.
94 / WILLIAM BLAKE

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

5 And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,

And I saw it was filled with graves,

10 And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.

1794

London

I wander thro' each charter'd' street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

5 In every cry of every Man,

In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,2
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear:

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry

10 Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlot's curse
15 Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,3
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.4

1794

1. "Given liberty," but also, ironically, "preempted
as private property, and rented out."
2. The various meanings of ban are relevant (polit-
ical and legal prohibition, curse, public condem-
nation) as well as "banns" (marriage proclama-
tion).
3. Most critics read this line as implying prenatal
blindness, resulting from a parent's venereal dis-
ease (the "plagues" of line 16) by earlier infection
from the harlot.
4. In the older sense: "converts the marriage bed
into a bier." Or possibly, because the current sense
of the word had also come into use in Blake's day,
"converts the marriage coach into a funeral
hearse."