Die down, O dismal day, and let me live; And come, blue deeps, magnificently strewn With coloured clouds--large, light, and fugitive-- By upper winds through pompous motions blown. Now it is death in life--a vapour dense 5 Creeps round my window, till I cannot see The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens Shagging the mountain tops. O God! make free This barren shackled earth, so deadly cold-- Breathe gently forth thy spring, till winter flies 10 In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold, While she performs her customed charities. I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare-- O God, for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air! _David Gray._ CCXXXV _SONNET._ O Winter, wilt thou never, never, go? O Summer, but I weary for thy coming, Longing once more to hear the Luggie flow, And frugal bees, laboriously humming. Now the east wind diseases the infirm, 5 And I must crouch in comers from rough weather; Sometimes a winter sunset is a charm-- When the fired clouds, compacted, blaze together, And the large sun dips red behind the hills. I, from my window, can behold this pleasure; 10 And the eternal moon, what time she fills Her orb with argent, treading a soft measure, With queenly motions of a bridal mood, Through the white spaces of infinitude. _David Gray._ CCXXXVI _THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER._ 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, 5 That curled 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; 10 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 all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, 15 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. 20 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. _William Blake._ CCXXXVII _TO THE MOON._