Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.Īnd by came an angel who had a bright key,Īnd he opened the coffins and set them all free That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”Īnd so he was quiet and that very night,Īs Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, – “Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare, That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved: so I said, There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence)Īnd my father sold me while yet my tongueĬould scarcely cry ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! In Ghana, many children are forced to work in the cocoa and fishing industries. UNICEF estimates that there are as many as 150 million children used as labor and slaves worldwide. Most unfortunately, child labor is still practiced today. Specifically, children forced to work as chimney sweepers in 18th Century England. But why settle for one excellent poem when you can have two! I don’t think that it is necessary to read the first in order to appreciate the second. Because the story behind T he Chimney Sweeper is presented in a poem of the same name in Songs of Innocence. In Songs of Experience, there are depictions of social and political corruption, loss of innocence, fear, resignation and powerlessness.īear with me, people. Poems in Songs of Innocence deal with infant joy, youth and vitality. The poems in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience exhibit the two contrasting existential states of Paradise and the Fall. This second week’s selections of Romantic poetry written by William Blake are taken from Songs of Experience (1794).

The chimney sweeper experience