William Blake's poem "The
Chimney Sweeper" (1789) (from his volume- Songs of Innocence) is set
against this dark background of child labour that was prominent in England in
the late 18th and 19th Century.
A young chimney sweeper recounts a
dream had by one of his fellow chimney-sweeper, in which an angel rescues the
boys from black coffins and takes them to a sunny meadow. Interestingly, in
this poem Blake uses a child's innocent and naive view and demonstrates how it
allows the societal abuse of child labour. It also displays Blake's acute
sensibility to the realities of poverty and exploitation that accompanied the
"dark satanic mills" of the Industrial Revolution.
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, and 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; and that very night,
As
Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That
thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and 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 and 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 and 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, and never want joy.
And
so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And
got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though
the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So
if all do their duty they need not fear harm.
- William
Blake
Question
to the readers- Do you think the poem is relevant even
today? How?
