“I like to meet a sweep — such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes, sounding like the peep, peep, of a young sparrow.”

ESSAYS OF ELIA.

——“A voice cried Sweep no more!

Macbeth hath murdered sweep.”

SHAKSPEARE.

One morning, ere my usual time

I rose, about the seventh chime,

When little stunted boys that climb

Still linger in the street;

And as I walked, I saw indeed

A 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 job

His lab’ring breast appeared to throb,

And half a hiccup half a sob

Betray’d internal woe.

To cry amain he had by rote

He 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 snatched

Disclosed his sorry eyelids patch’d

With red, as if the soot had catch’d

That 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 Deaf and 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 Sweep

As 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 either bit 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 us

As 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 with singing.

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 brou............