The poem Chimney Sweep is William Blakes response to the condition of the children who swept the dark, polluted chimneys for a living.
The poem Chimney Sweep is William Blake’s response to the condition of the children who swept the dark, polluted chimneys for a living. He expounds on the horrible conditions these children face and he writes that the only solace the children will get is through death, “...he open’d the coffins and set them all free.” The child who is telling the story narrates that before he finished his tender years, he had to leave the house to clean chimneys. Blake’s second line says “Could scarcely cry “weep, weep, weep, and weep,” is actually supposed to say sweep, sweep, sweep and sweep. However, his choice of diction, which is clever a play on words say, “weep” because these children were crying because they were still babies and the work was too hard and it entwines misery with the work they are doing. The inability of the child to pronounce the word sweep evokes pity in the reader as it shows the injustice of putting such young children in such a dangerous line of work. Blake sets the heartbreaking mood of the poem with concrete images such “thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack, were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black” sets a perturbed forecast of what awaits them. The image of blackness is darkness that is enveloping the children literally and metaphorically because the soot makes them black and the pollution will eventually kill them all. He also employs sarcasm when he says death is the only way to have joy and poor Tom Dacre happily goes to clean chimneys so he can die with enthusiasm. In the second stanza where the speaker comforts Tom Dacre, “You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.” It embodies the tragedy of the poem as the children are still able to remain optimistic and innocent in such an oppressive environment.
