A Little Boy Lost

By William Blake

Nought loves another as itself,
  Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
  A greater than itself to know.


‘And, father, how can I love you
  Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
  That picks up crumbs around the door.’


The Priest sat by and heard the child;
  In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
  And all admired the priestly care.


And standing on the altar high,
  ‘Lo, what a fiend is here! said he:
‘One who sets reason up for judge
  Of our most holy mystery.’


The weeping child could not be heard,
  The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
  And bound him in an iron chain,


And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such thing done on Albion’s shore?

This Poem Features In: