The Chimney Sweeper

William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper” was first published in his poetry collection Songs of Innocence (1789) and then republished in the expanded Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). The latter collection includes another poem of the same title, which complements the first poem and clarifies Blake’s intention. All poems in the collection are short and deceivingly simple in form, borrowing from and building on the conventions of 18th-century poetry for children, designed to teach them moral lessons. However, Blake exposes such moralizing as hypocritical and oppressive. At first glance, “The Chimney Sweeper” may appear to promote innocent faith and obedience, but it turns out to be a sly critique of child exploitation and of the use of Christian teachings to silence any protest or rebellion against such exploitation.

The poems in this collection belong to Blake’s early and best-known work. They engage in subtle social criticism while espousing imagination and guileless joy as necessary but neglected values in the excessively rational world of the Enlightenment. This emphasis on imagination is just one artistic feature that Blake has in common with the great Romantic poets of the following generation: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor College, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Deeply embedded in 18th-century spiritual and philosophical thought but also a precursor of new developments, Blake is a transitional figure, often classified as a pre-Romantic poet. Nevertheless, he is also a poetic voice of high originality and occupies a unique place in the tradition of English poetry.

Poet Biography

William Blake was born into the family of a London tradesman in 1757. He had no formal education as a child, other than at a drawing school, but he read widely and avidly. Later he studied at the Royal Academy of Arts and became an apprentice engraver at the age of 14. He married but had no children, and made a living by teaching drawing, illustrating books, and engraving other artists’ designs.

Blake developed his own technique of relief etching, which he called “illuminated printing” and used to illustrate his own books. There are experimental and innovative elements in Blake’s poetry and his visual art. A famous statement in one of his later books embodies his nonconformism and individualism: “I must create a system [of my own] or be enslaved by another man’s.”

Blake was suspicious and critical of all forms of authoritarianism. He was deeply religious, but believed that contemporary religious institutions obscured and betrayed the radicalism of Christ’s teaching. Although he was baptized and married under the auspices of the official Church of England, he was closely affiliated with religious dissenters, whose participation in public life was limited until 1828. His political views were equally unorthodox. He was enthusiastic about the French Revolution of 1789, but after it led to unnecessary violence, Blake (like many other Romantic poets) focused more on the power of individual spiritual transformation than social transformation achieved by political means.

Fearing the spread of revolutionary fervor from France, the British government took increasingly draconian measures to obstruct political dissent, including prohibition of public gatherings, suspension of laws protecting individual freedom, and surveillance of its critics. Blake was deeply affected by an incident that happened in 1803, when he confronted a soldier trespassing on Blake’s land. Following a skirmish, the soldier accused Blake of uttering seditious statements about king and country. Blake was acquitted at trial, but the experience deepened his distrust of social institutions and pushed him further into the private world of his imagination and artistic creation.

Blake’s later art and poetry became increasingly allusive and obscure, veiling his radical religious, moral, and political views with complex and idiosyncratic symbolism. In works of that period, the so-called “prophetic books”—includingThe Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem, on which he worked between 1800 and 1820—Blake developed his own mythology, inventing allegorical characters who embody aspects of humanity (especially the opposing forces of reason and imagination). These texts are difficult to read without expert commentary.

In his final years, Blake dedicated himself completely to visual art. At the time of his death in 1828, he was little known as an artist and even less as a poet; some saw him as a kind of mad genius, who had visions of angels and was deeply involved in his art. In later decades, his reputation steadily grew. Today he is recognized as a key poet of the period. Blake has been especially popular among other nonconformists, such as American Beat poets, and he is now deservedly regarded as one of the great individualists in British poetry.

Poem Text

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.

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."

And so he was quiet, & 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;

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.

Then naked & 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.

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.

Blake, William. “The Chimney Sweeper.” 1789. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The speaker in the poem is a young boy, probably not older than ten, who works as a chimney sweeper in the 18th-century London. He lost his mother while he was still an infant, and his father gave him away for money while the boy was still too young to pronounce his sibilants. He has become one of many poor orphans who must work for their upkeep.

He describes another such boy, fellow chimneysweep Tom Dacre, crying because his hair was shaved. The speaker comforts him by saying that now at least his hair will not be spoiled by soot.

That night, Tom has a dream in which he sees thousands of boys like him confined in coffins, but an angel unlocks the coffins and lets them out. The boys enjoy their freedom by running in a valley and laughing. After they wash in a river and dry in the sun, they rise on clouds and play in the wind. The angel tells Tom that, if he is a good boy, God will be his father and give him joy.

Tom awakes before dawn because he and the speaker must go to work. It is a cold morning, but Tom is warm and happy because of his dream. The last line of the poem spells out what appears to be its moral: Those who do their duty will be protected from harm.