The Little Sweep. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
By William Lisle Bowles
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.