The Little Sweep. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

WRITTEN FOR JAMES MONTGOMERY'S CHIMNEY-SWEEPER'S ALBUM.

They sing of the poor sailor-boy, who wanders o'er the deep,
But few there are who think upon the friendless little sweep!
In darkness to his dreary toil, through winter's frost and snows,
When the keen north wind is piping shrill, the shivering urchin goes.

He has no father; and from grief, his mother's eyes are dim,
And none beside, in all the world, awakes to pray for him;
For him no summer Sundays smile, no health is in the breeze;
His mind is dark as his face, a prey to dire disease.[192]

O English gentlemen! your hearts have bled for the black slave, -
You heard his melancholy moan from the Atlantic wave;
He thought upon his father's land, and cried, A long farewell,
But blessed you, gazing at the sun, when first his fetters fell.

And if ye plead for creatures dumb, and deem their fate severe,
Shall human wrongs, in your own land, call forth no generous tear?
Humanity implores; awake from apathy's cold sleep,
And when you plead for others' wrongs, forget not the poor sweep.

When summer comes, the bells shall ring, and flowers and hawthorns blow,
The village lasses and the lads shall all a-Maying go:
Kind-hearted lady, may thy soul in heaven a blessing reap,
Whose bounty at that season flows, to cheer the little sweep.[193]

'Tis yours, ye English gentlemen, such comforts to prolong;
'Tis yours the friendless to protect, and all who suffer wrong;
But one day in the toiling year the friendless sweep is gay,
Protect, and smiling industry shall make his long year May.

William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles was an English cleric, poet, and critic who was born on 24th September 1762 and died on 7th April 1850. He is best known for his sonnets, which were highly praised by the Romantic poets. Bowles's work significantly influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Besides his poetry, he wrote extensively on literary criticism and editing. Bowles spent much of his clerical career in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

William Lisle Bowles

Morley's Farewell To The Cottage Of Isaak Walton.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

In Memoriam

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Epitaph On Benjamin Tremlyn, An Old Soldier, Buried In Bremhill Churchyard At The Age Of 92.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Right Honourable Edmund Burke

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Sweeps Complaint.

"I like to meet a sweep - such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes, sounding like the peep, peep, of a young sparrow."
- ESSAYS OF ELIA.

    -    - "A voice cried Sweep no more!
    Macbeth hath murdered sweep."
            SHAKSPEARE.


One morning, ere my usual time
I rose, about the seventh chime,
When little stunted boys that climb
Still linger in the street;
And as I walked, I saw indeed
A sample of the sooty breed,
Though he was rather run to seed,
In height above five feet.
A mongrel tint he seemed to take,
Poetic simile to make,
DAY through his MARTIN 'gan to break,
White overcoming jet.
From side to side he crossed oblique,
Like Frenchman who has friends to seek,
...

Thomas Hood

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!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; 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, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!--
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and let them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine i...

William Blake

The Chimney-Sweeps Of Cheltenham

When hawthorn buds are creaming white,
    And the red foolscap all stuck with may,
Then lasses walk with eyes alight,
    And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.

For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,
    Sooty of face as a swallow of wing,
Come whistling, singing, dancing down
    With white teeth flashing as they sing.

And Jack-in-the green, by a clown in blue,
    Walks like a two-legged bush of may,
With the little wee lads that wriggled up the flue
    Ere Cheltenham town cried "dancing day."

For brooms were short and the chimneys tall,
    And the gipsies caught 'em these blackbirds cheap,
So Cheltenham bought them, spry and small,
    And shoved them up in the dark to sweep.

For Cheltenham town was cruel of old,
    But...

Alfred Noyes

The Chimney Sweeper

A little black thing in 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 smiled 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 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."

William Blake

The Chimney Sweeper (Songs Of Innocence )

When my mother died I was very young,
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.

Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shavd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your heads bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair

And so he was quiet. & that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lockd up in coffins of black,

And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he opend 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.

William Blake

The Woodman.

Dedicated To The Rev. J. Knowles Holland.

The beating snow-clad bell, with sounding dead,
Hath clanked four--the woodman's wak'd again;
And, as he leaves his comfortable bed,
Dithers to view the rimy feather'd pane,
And shrugs, and wishes--but 'tis all in vain:
The bed's warm comforts he must now forego;
His family that oft till eight hath lain,
Without his labour's wage could not do so,
And glad to make them blest he shuffles through the snow.

The early winter's morn is dark as pitch,
The wary wife from tinder brought at night,
With flint and steel, and many a sturdy twitch,
Sits up in bed to strike her man a light;
And as the candle shows the rapturous sight,
Aside his wife his rosy sleeping boy,
He smacks his lips with exquisite delight,
Wi...

John Clare