Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1826)/Songs of Experience/A Little Boy Lost

‘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 his 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 things done on Albion’s shore?