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.
There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled 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.’