Читать книгу The Blue Poetry Book - Lang Andrew, May Kendall - Страница 11

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 curl’d 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 lock’d up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he open’d the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then, naked and 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,

He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work;

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.