A Little Boy Lost
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?