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 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.
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