The Sweeps Complaint

"I like to meet a sweep--such as come forth with thedawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professionalnotes, sounding like the peep, peep, of a young sparrow."

----"A voice cried Sweep no more!Macbeth hath murdered sweep."

One morning, ere my usual timeI rose, about the seventh chime,When little stunted boys that climbStill linger in the street;And as I walked, I saw indeedA sample of the sooty breed,Though he was rather run to seed,In height above five feet.A mongrel tint he seemed to take,Poetic simile to make,DAY through his MARTIN 'gan to break,White overcoming jet.From side to side he crossed oblique,Like Frenchman who has friends to seek,And yet no English word can speak,He walked upon the fret:And while he sought the dingy jobHis lab'ring breast appeared to throb,And half a hiccup half a sobBetray'd internal woe.To cry amain he had by roteHe yearn'd, but law forbade the note,Like Chanticleer with roupy throat,He gaped--but not a crow!I watched him and the glimpse I snatchedDisclosed his sorry eyelids patch'dWith red, as if the soot had catch'dThat hung about the lid;And soon I saw the tear-drop stray,He did not care to brush away;Thought I, the cause he will betray--And thus at last he did.

Well, here's a pretty go! here's a Gagging Act, if ever there was a gagging!But I'm bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had plenty of magging.They had better send us all off, they had, to the School for the Deafand Dumb,To unlarn us our mother tongues, and to make signs and be regularly mum.But they can't undo natur--as sure as ever the morning begins to peep,Directly I open my eyes, I can't help calling out SweepAs natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots, that say Cheep!For my own part I find my suppressed voice very uneasy,And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt when you are sneezy.Well, it's all up with us! tho' I suppose we mustn't cry all up.Here's a precious merry Christmas, I'm blest if I can earn eitherbit or sup!If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness's border,Them as pretends to be fond of silence oughtn't to cry hear, hear,and order, order.I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we've sut-on too, don't sympathize with usAs a Speaker what don't speak, and that's exactly our own cus.God help us if we don't not cry, how are we to pursue our callings?I'm sure we're not half so bad as other businesses with their bawlings.For instance, the general postmen, that at six o'clock go about ringing,And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just got to sleep withsinging.Greens oughtn't to be cried no more than blacks--to do the unpartial job,If they bring in a Sooty Bill, they ought to have brought in a Dusty Bob.Is a dustman's voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes a seeking arterthe cinders,Instead of a little boy like a blackbird in spring, singing merrilyunder your windows?There's the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps calling outBank and City;Let his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is not just aspretty.I can't see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old Closethro' their hooky noses,And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the old stone lawsof Moses.Why isn't the mouths of the muffin-men compell'd to be equally shut?Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they never eat no sut.Next year there won't be any May-day at all, we shan't have no heartto dance,And Jack in the Green will go in black like mourning for our mischance;If we live as long as May, that's to say, through the hard winterand pinching weather,For I don't see how we're to earn enough to keep body and soul together.I only wish Mr. Wilberforce, or some of them that pities the niggers,Would take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our miserable starvingfigures,A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each other,And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heartbreaking Fatherand Mother.They havn't a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had threadand needles,But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm of commonblack beadles.If they'd only inquired before passing the Act, and taken a few suchpeeps,I don't think that any real gentleman would have set his face againstsweeps.Climbing's an ancient respectable art, and if History's of any vally,Was recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir Walter Raleigh,When he wrote on a pane of glass how I'd climb, if the way I only knew,And she writ beneath, if your heart's afeard, don't venture up the flue.As for me I was always loyal, and respected all powers that are higher,But how can I now say God save the King, if I ain't to be a Cryer?There's London milk, that's one of the cries, even on Sunday the law allows,But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser off thanblack cows?Do we go calling about, when it's church time, like the noisy Billingsgatevermin,And disturb the parson with "All alive O!" in the middle of a funeralsermon?But the fish won't keep, not the mackerel won't, is the cry of theParliament elves,Everything, except the sweeps I think, is to be allowed to keep themselves!Lord help us! what's to become of us if we mustn't cry no more?We shan't do for black mutes to go a standing at a death's door.And we shan't do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot nations,For as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think of oursituations!And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to serve ladies ofquality nimbly,For when we were drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large frills, allclean and neat, and white silk stockings, if they pleased to desireus to sweep the hearth, we couldn't resist the chimbley.