| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | Holy Thursday | | By William Blake (1757–1827) |
| | | ’TWAS on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, | |
| The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green, | |
| Grey headed beadles walk’d before, with wands as white as snow, | |
| Till unto the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames’ waters flow. | |
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| O what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town! | 5 |
| Seated in companies, they sit with radiance all their own. | |
| The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, | |
| Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands. | |
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| Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song, | |
| Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among. | 10 |
| Beneath them sit the agèd men, wise guardians of the poor; | |
| Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door. | | | | |
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