Poet’s Corner: Blake–Chimney Sweep

10 Mat 2026

(16 May 2014) We return with another favorite of mine, among William Blake’s poems, “The Chimney Sweeper,” an example of Blake’s not-so-subtle social commentary:

The Chimney Sweeper

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.

Chimney sweeps during the 19th century were nothing like their portrayal by Disney and Dick Van Dyke–they were not happy-go-lucky adult males, whose hand everyone wanted to shake, but were young boys, sold into indentured servitude, at which they slaved until too big to fit up the chimneys. What happened then? They were forced to work until they got stuck, and the only way to get them out was build a very large fire in the now blocked fireplace. In this case, the poet notes how young this sweep is, so young that he cannot form the ‘s-w’ blend, which comes out as simply, “weep,” which is what anyone with any sensitivity would do, knowing the sweeps’ unfortunate plight. To become a sweep was a death sentence, so it is no wonder that all they think about is dying and going to heaven. Blake proceeds in typical fashion, relating the story of Tom the sweep, who cried when his head was shaved–standard practice among sweeps, to keep the lice population down–and then ‘twists the knife,’ repeating the boy’s admonition that shaving Tom’s head will prevent the soot from “spoil[ing his] white hair.” Boys don’t usually have white hair, which is reserved for the elderly; these boys, however, are old before their time, since their time is limited, ending when they are “lock’d up in coffins of black,” an obvious reference to the chimneys, which will become their coffins, when the ‘Angel’ comes to release, although this ‘angel’ wears black and carries a scythe! Come back Thursday for another edition of the Poet’s Corner! If the reader is interested in my poetry, find the links here.