Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Chimney Sweeper is the title of two separate poems by William Blake. The first of these poems was published in his collection ‘Songs of Innocence’ in 1789. In 1794, Blake published the second poem by the same title in his collection ‘Songs of Experience’.
The earlier poem is told from the perspective of a young chimney sweeper who has been sold as a child laborer by his father. He meets another young kid named Tom Dacre who is terrified by the situations at the chimney workplace. During that period, young boys from poor families in England were sold to clean chimneys at the age of four or five. They were suitable for the work because of their diminutive size. Children in this field of work were often unfed and poorly clothed.
In most cases, these children died from either falling through the chimneys or from lung damage and other horrible diseases from breathing in the soot. This poem is titled The Chimney Sweeper which primarily deals with the dream of Tom Dacre in which he and other chimney sweepers are visited by an angel who releases them from their “coffins of black” and promises them eternal bliss, but at a cost. The angel tells Tom that if “he’d be a good boy/ He’d have God for his father & never want joy.” The emphasis on their “duty” as chimney sweepers belies Tom’s naivety—he accepts an implicit social contract that dictates his servitude in exchange for the abstract promise of salvation.
The Songs of Experience contain the second poem or the second part of the same poem titled THE Chimney Sweeper. In the second poem, the child is more clear about his situation with no illusions about the exploitative situation he has been forced into.
Structure of The Chimney Sweeper:
“The Chimney Sweeper” comprises six quatrains, each following the AABB rhyme scheme, with two rhyming couplets per quatrain. The regularity of the form offers a sense of a nursery rhyme of children's fable. The poem follows anapestic and iambic meter and is written in first person narrative. The poem is set in London, during the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s.
The poem can be divided into four sections. In the first stanza, the narrator introduces himself and the misery and hardship of his life as a chimney sweep. The second stanza is Tom Dacre's arrival into the chimney sweep worker’s group, followed by shaving his head. The third, fourth, and fifth stanzas all deal with Tom Dacre's dream which has elements of pastoral poetry.
Summary of The Chimney Sweeper:
Stanza 1 Lines 1-4
“When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
"So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.”
The first stanza introduces the speaker, a young boy forced by circumstances into the hazardous occupation of a chimney sweeper. The little boy recounts how his mother passed away when he was quite young. When he was young enough to not even be able to say the word "sweep," he was sold by his father to a Master Sweeper instead, and he cried constantly. The sorrowful meaning of the pun created by the word "weep" appears three times in the third line of this stanza. Like him, the majority of chimney sweeps had an accent that caused them to pronounce sweep as "weep." Since he was a little child, the youngster has been cleaning the chimney and spending the night inside his soot-covered body without cleaning it off. The poet used a 2nd-person addressee (your) that stands in for English society: in other words, those whose chimneys are swept. This choice gives the poem an accusatory tone.
Stanza 2 Lines (5-8)
“There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."”
The speaker then introduces Tom Dacre, the hero of the poem. Tom was referred to as "Dacre" because he lived in Lady Dacre's Almshouse, which was tucked away between Buckingham Road and St. James Street. The almshouse only let in the needy among its residents, who were foundling orphans. The youngster, Tom, may have been sold to a master sweeper by a foster parent to represent him. In the same way, a lamb's back has been cut for wool, Tom cried when his head was being shaved. Then the narrator instructed Tom to stop crying and stop talking. Because there wouldn't be any chance of lice breeding in the pate or of hair catching fire, the narrator advised Tom to maintain his cool. The speaker says that now when Tom is bald, the soot cannot ruin the white color of his hair.
Stanza 3 Lines 9-12
“And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;”
The speaker succeeds in calming Tom down. He was no more weeping for this bald head after that and he fell in a deep slumber that night. During his sleep, Tom had an amazing dream that began on a depressing note. In his dream, he saw the deaths of numerous chimney sweepers by the names of Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, and the remains of these men were found within cage-like coffins constructed of dark wood.
Stanza 4 Lines 14-16
“And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.”
The dream continues in the fourth stanza. The speaker further explains the dream of Tom Dacre and says that an Angel, who was carrying a shining key, came near the coffins. The Angel opened the coffins containing the bodies and set all the bodies free from the bondage of coffins. The freed little sweepers of the chimney ran down a green ground, washed in the water of a river, and dried themselves in the sunlight to give out a clean shine. This was an excellent ending for the dream that began at a gloomy note. The chimney sweepers were freed from the shackles of bondage labor, exploitation, and child labor.
Stanza 5 Lines 17-21
“Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.”
The dream continues in the fifth stanza as the narrator says that as the children got rid of their shackles, they bathed in the clear shiny river. They were all naked and white, free of any soot, blackness, and dirty clothes as all their bags were left behind. The children travel through the clouds while having fun in the blowing air. The poet uses the imagery of free-floating clouds as a visual sign of liberation from the physical limitations of the body. The angel assured Tom that if he behaved well, he would have God as his father and would never be without happiness.
Stanza 6 Lines 22-24
“And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.”
The dream concludes in the sixth and final stanza. As Tom woke up, his dream ended abruptly. Tom and the other young sweeper lads got out of bed in the pitch black. They prepared for work by grabbing their bags for dirt and the scrubbers they needed for washing the chimney. Tom felt warm and content after having the dream, despite the chilly morning. The poet offers a suggestion in the last line; If everyone does their responsibility, they need not fear any damage.
In 1794, Blake published his other major poetic collection titled Songs of Experience which again contained a poem by the same title “THE Chimney Sweeper.” However, he capitalized all letters of the first word ‘The.’ In the same year, he published the unified version of these collections by the title Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Both the poems were published in this version and they offer a contrast between the joy, freedom, and happiness that are the natural state of childhood with the oppression and exploitation of contemporary society.
While Blake offers the solace and comfort of organized religion while criticizing English society in the first poem, he attacks organized religion along with the society in this second poem. The children are still suffering in the chimneys despite their best efforts to commit to their duties. The little sweep boy is so covered in soot that he is barely recognizable. He explains that society has oppressed and exploited the natural joyfulness of his youth. He is so deteriorated and weak that there is no hope for him. Blake again wrote this poem in quatrains but it is rather short with just three stanzas (12 lines, four lines in each stanza). Blake used iambic and anapestic meter in this poem following a rhyming scheme of AABB CACA EFEF. Blake used alliteration, assonance, and imagery in the poem. This second poem can be divided into two sections. In the first section, an unspecified speaker notices a little black thing’, the little chimney sweep boy in the snow who is crying. The speaker wonders why the child is crying and asks him about his parents. The child then answers how he was trapped in the Chimney and how devastating his life has been.
Summary of THE Chimney Sweeper:
Stanza 1 Lines 1-4
“A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? Say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.”
The unknown speaker notices a strange black thing in the snow. This thing is a child, who has lost both his parents. He is so covered in the soot that he is unrecognizable. The poet describes the child as ‘a little black thing,’ suggesting the inhumanity of the society of that period. As the speaker asks the child about his well-being and his parents, the child cries out, that both of his parents have “gone up the church to pray”. There is no one to care for him. No parents to provide for him or an organization that cares what happens to him. Many might say they care but then do nothing to prove it.
Stanza 2 Lines 5-8
“Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.”
The child hardly had anybody to share his sorrow and when this unspecified stranger asked him about his well-being, he took a chance to express his anguish. He thinks back to his earlier days and how happy he used to be. All of this was taken from him. “They,” the church, “clothed” the child in “death” and forced him to ‘sing the notes of woe”. He was taught the darkest parts of life during a very important period in his life. He should’ve been free to be happy and joyful in nature but instead, he’s a chimney sweeper.
Stanza 3 Lines 9-12
“And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."”
In the last stanza, the poet scathingly attacks the church or organized religion. The child says that the men and women who might help him, those who go to church, think he’s okay because he “dance[s] and sing[s]”. They don’t know that these things are done only to get by and sometimes to find some comfort somewhere. They think that they’ve done him “no injury”. The child speaker places the blame for his circumstances at the feet of “God and his Priest and King”. The Church, and more broadly organized religion, is at fault for his “misery”.
In the first poem (of Innocence) the poet offered organized religion as a solace against the ill conditions of the children by means of the strange vision of Tom Dacre. But in this second poem, there is no such illusion in the child’s mind. He realizes that the actual culprit for his ill-condition is the organized religion. It was the duty of the church to take good care of the orphan children but the church forced them in slavery to work in the chimneys.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
