The Chimney Sweeper Poem Summary Song Of Innocence and Song of Experience

The Chimney Sweeper Poem Summary

The speaker of the poem is a chimney sweeper, who sells after mother's death. Speaker found himself in miserable conditions as his mother died when he was very young and her father sold him to another without thinking what would happen to him.

The speaker telling the story of her friend. Tom was proud of his soft and curly hair comparable to that growing on lamps back. But this hair had to be closely shaved before his admission to the trade of Chimney-sweeper. Tom who was cut off to make chimneys suitable for her work. The boy comforted Tom and entered into the dream of Tom, and Tom saw that thousands of Chimney Sweepers like him were doing the same thing and screaming about their pain. Because they are in captivity inside the black coffin. The angel came and opened the coffin with the keys and released the boys. The children, who were released, ran through the green fields and went to the river and removed all their ink in the river.

The dream signifies something, such as freedom, Play and release from confinement, to which the children always aspired but never had the opportunity of enjoyment. After being set free, the children ran down to a green plain to laugh and jump about, to wash in a river and to sit bright in the sun and to climb on clouds and play merrily in the wind. They looked bright white in the sun's light. The angel tells Tom if he is a good boy, he will be released like these children. Tom came out of the dream and found that he was leaving for the job and he was happy to think that one day his sufferings would be reduced. William Blake has presented a pathetic picture of the Chimney Sweeper. He appears as “little black thing”in an account of his short figure and the wearing of a soot-stained garment.