SparkNotes: Complete Text of Songs of Innocence and Experience: Poem 41

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Poem 41:
A LITTLE BOY LOST (II)

'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?

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