ls. 18. The Chimney Sweeper
Mary Alcock
“The Chimney Sweeper” is a poem of Mary Alcock. This poem is about poverty and unkindness. In the first stanza, we find that the speaker is a very young boy who is a chimney sweeper. During the period of Blake, in England little boys were employed for sweeping chimneys.
The teen ages boy lost his mother and his father sold him to a master-sweeper. He carried a brush and shouted searching work of chimney sweeping. He was sold when he was unable to pronounce the word ‘sweep’.Thus a note of tragedy is struck at the very beginning of the poem. The child pronounced ‘weep’ in stead of ‘sweep’ because he was put into a condition to weep or children of his age weeps to attract attention of parents or others. It conveys distress of a little chimney sweeper.
we can also see this way that children of poor parents are not fed unless they cry. In England at the time of Blake people might have lost sense of christianity and employed such children to work who were suppose to be in charity school. A child sleeping in soot suggests that the morality of English people got darkened.
Then in the second stanza, a such teen aged sweeper named Tom Dacre who had nice curley hair was shaved his head in order not to catch fire. Also, his beautiful hair will not get spoilled by the soot, was a statement of giving consolation to the boy.
In the third stanza we see that Tom Dacre went to sleep at night and he dreamt a dream that thousand of teen aged sweeper like him were locked in coffins of black.
In the fourth stanza, the boy dreamt that an angel with abright key opened the coffins and set them all free. The boys ran towards the river leaping and laughing and took bath there and they emerged bright.
In the fifth stanza we see that those boys left their brown bags behind and played with the wind and the angel told Tom that God would be his father if he had been a good boy and then he would want joy never.
In the last stanza it is told that Tom woke up next day morning when it was dark and went to work with his brush and bag happily in a warm mood.
English Study Material 