Victorian children and children nowadays

THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER (WILLIAM BLAKE)

When my mother died I was very young

And my father sold me when yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry "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 hair is bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair"

And so he was quiet; and that very night,

As Tom was 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 set them 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.