The Full Text of “The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)”
1A little black thing among the snow,
2Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
3"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
4"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
5"Because I was happy upon the heath,
6And smil'd among the winter's snow,
7They clothed me in the clothes of death,
8And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
9"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
10They think they have done me no injury,
11And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
12Who make up a heaven of our misery."
The Full Text of “The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)”
1A little black thing among the snow,
2Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
3"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
4"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
5"Because I was happy upon the heath,
6And smil'd among the winter's snow,
7They clothed me in the clothes of death,
8And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
9"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
10They think they have done me no injury,
11And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
12Who make up a heaven of our misery."
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“The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Introduction
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"The Chimney Sweeper" is a poem by English visionary William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794). It is the companion to a poem of the same name that appears in the earlier Innocence collection, and works as a kind of update on the plight of the chimney sweeper—a young boy forced to do the horrible work of cleaning chimneys. Unlike in the first poem, this sweep can take no solace in organized religion—he is too experienced for that. He is so covered in soot that he is barely recognizable, and explains to the reader that society has oppressed and exploited the natural joyfulness of his youth.
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“The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Summary
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There is a small black shape in the snow that seems to be crying out in sadness and pain. It is a small child, and when asked where his parents, the child replies that they have gone to pray in church.
The child continues: "Just because I used to play happily in green fields, or frolic in the snow, they punished me and took away my happiness. They made sing this song of sadness.
"Because of my joyful dancing and singing, they think they've done nothing wrong. They're too busy at the Church, praising God, the priest, and the king—the authorities that build their fake heaven out of the pain and suffering of boys like me."
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“The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Themes
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Organized Religion and Childhood
“The Chimney Sweeper” is a poem about the corrupting influence of organized religion on society. It specifically suggests that the Church encroaches on the freedoms and joys of childhood and, indeed, robs children of their youth.
The poem focuses on a common figure during Blake’s time: the chimney sweeper. Chimney sweepers were usually young boys forced to climb and clean chimneys, putting themselves in grave danger in return for little more than a meal and somewhere to sleep. Whereas the chimney sweeps in the Songs of Innocence poem of the same title hold on to their religious beliefs as a way of coping with their dire situation, the sweep of this poem knows full well that organized religion is a form of oppression, not salvation. Put simply, the speaker of “The Chimney Sweeper” has seen through the lies of the Church and isn’t afraid to say so. He exposes these hypocrisies and deceptions—outlining how they have affected his life, and society more widely.
The young chimney sweep is first described as a “little back thing” who is weeping “among the snow.” When asked where his parents are, the child responds that they’ve “gone up to the church to pray,” suggesting that the Church—a metonym for organized religion—has literally led them astray. His mother and father are too occupied with satisfying their religious authorities to give the young chimney sweep a childhood full of joy and freedom. The Church, the poem thus suggests, is an actively corrupting influence on the sweep and his family. And as the chimney sweeps came from poor families, this perhaps speaks to Blake’s belief that organized religion sold false hope to those in poverty.
The chimney sweep then outlines how organized religion—with its rules and limitations—influences the natural progression of childhood. The sweep was “happy” singing, smiling, dancing, and playing outside. But the young chimney sweep is forced to sacrifice his childhood in order to become a laborer (to the advantage, of course, to those in positions of power). That’s why has been clothed in “clothes of death” and “taught […] to sing the notes of woe.”
Organized religion, the poem then suggests, helps society absolve itself of any guilt for exploiting its children in this way. “They think they have done me no injury,” says the sweep. In other words, people think that as long they do what the Church tells them to then they will be rewarded by God (indeed, this is what the sweeps in the Innocence poem believe). No one takes responsibility for the children, meaning that nobody steps in to prevent them from leading short, miserable lives. And that’s why this society’s heaven is no longer a real heaven.
Heaven is supposed to be a place of bliss, beauty, joy, freedom, and communion with God—but organized religion offers only a “heaven of our misery.” It is a corrupt place literally built on the labor and exploitation—the “misery”—of the young and impoverished (this mirrors the way that sweeps would have to clean the chimneys of the middle and upper classes). Ultimately, then, the poem is scathing about organized religion—implying it that it is something separate from spirituality, faith, and the true meaning of a relationship with God.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)”
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Lines 1-2
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!"The Chimney Sweeper" begins on a mysterious note. The first sighting of the young chimney sweep is a kind of grim vision, the boy made initially unrecognizable by the sheer amount of soot that covers him. Instead, he is just "a little black thing among the snow." This vague description has a kind of distancing and dehumanizing effect, showing the way that the boy has been made literally and metaphorically unidentifiable—as though he is no longer a child, but a mere black shape, a dark mark on the conscience of society.
This first line uses also delicate consonance:
A little black thing among the snow,
The gentleness of this reminds the reader that, though the child speaker is world-weary and experienced, he is still small and vulnerable.
The second line points out that the "little black thing" is crying and weeping. Consider who is the observer here; most likely, Blake intends to put the reader in that position as part of an argument that everyone bears some responsibility for the way society works (or, indeed, doesn't work). That is, the reader becomes a spectator to this small child's suffering.
The poem here also uses epizeuxis in the repetition of "weep! 'weep!" This is an echo of the other "The Chimney Sweeper" poem, which is found in Songs of Innocence (this poem comes from Songs of Experience). It's an important link because this poem essentially undoes the false moralizing of the first poem. In the first poem, the terrified young chimney sweeps also "weep" but find (temporary) comfort in the idea that God will grant them happiness if they only work obediently and dutifully.
Soon after, though, comes this poem's picture of abject misery—with the quick repetition of "weep" implying it might even be one of the boys in the first poem—with the key difference that now he is wise to the lies and deceptions of organized religion. The assonance of "notes of woe" is also an important factor here, making the line itself sound like a kind of depressing song. The alliteration of "weep" with "woe" links further the action of crying to the sweep's life of misery.
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Lines 3-4
"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray. -
Lines 5-8
"Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe. -
Lines 9-12
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
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“The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
Alliteration is used throughout "The Chimney Sweeper." The first example is in line 2:
Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
The repetition of "weep" (technically known as epizeuxis) chimes with the /w/ sound of "woe" to link the act of crying with the chimney sweeper's state of misery. This helps establish the poem's air of tragedy, a tragedy that seems easily preventable—yet, for the sweepers themselves, painfully inevitable. Without the help of adult authorities, there is little they can do to change their fate.
The next big example is in line 5, which is part of the chimney sweeper's explanation for the causes of his pain and impoverishment:
"Because I was happy upon the heath,
These two /h/ sounds ring together playfully, fitting the image of a happy child frolicking on the heath (a kind of field). It links happiness with the outdoors, contrasting the open and free space of the heath with the claustrophobic, hellish interior of the chimneys. The following line echoes this alliteration in "smil'd" and "snow," again drawing a link between joy and the natural world.
There is gentle /th/ alliteration at the start of line 10:
They think they have done me no injury,
The gentleness of the sound subtly evokes the line's sentiment—that, from the adults's perspective, nothing wrong has been done (because they are dutiful Christians). The sound also echoes the consonance in line 3—"thy father and mother"—which helps to group together all the different failures in authority that create the horrible conditions of the chimney sweeper's life. (Note that the /th/ of "think" sounds a bit different from that of "they," because the former is unvoiced while the latter is voiced. Some might not mark this technically as alliterative, but the sounds are similar enough to create a gentle effect altogether here.)
Finally, line 11 uses alliteration in "gone" and "God." This subtly emphasizes the poem's main message, which again is about the failure and corruption of authority. This /g/ sound links "God"—specifically organized religion—with the state of being "gone" (absent and neglectful). It therefore helps the poem point a finger at the Church as the cause behind the impoverishment and exploitation of the young.
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Paradox
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Repetition
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Polysyndeton
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"The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Woe
- Thy
- Heath
- Smil'd
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Misery and sadness.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)”
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Form
"The Chimney Sweeper" consists of three quatrains, or four-line stanzas. The form is typical of Blake, the simplicity of its appearance on the page masking the complexity of the ideas contained within.
Essentially, the poem has two main sections. The first of these is the initial sighting of the "little black thing"—the chimney sweep—in the snow. An unspecified initial speaker hears the boy crying and asks him for the whereabouts of his parents (who should be looking after him). This sets up the second and main section of the poem: the child's reply. This allows the young boy to demonstrate his knowledge of his own position, using his experience (as the collection's title, Songs of Experience, suggests) to explain how he finds himself in such misery and suffering.
What follows is a series of contrasts, and it's worth remembering that the full title of Blake's most famous collection was Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. The poem thus contrasts the joy, freedom, and happiness that are the natural state of childhood with the oppression and exploitation of contemporary society.
One other thing worth noting is the way that the form of this poem compares with the poem of the same title in Songs of Innocence (this is from Songs of Experience). This poem is half as long as that first poem, perhaps suggesting the weakening life-force (or even death) of the chimney sweep from one poem to the next.
It's also worth noting that most modern-day texts—including this one—simplify Blake's original punctuation, which can seem a little confusing to contemporary readers. Check out this link to the engraved poem (how it was originally published) to see Blake's own choice of full stops, commas, and so on.
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Meter
"The Chimney Sweeper" is a metrical poem, but its meter is fairly loose. Most feet in the poem are either iambic (da-DUM) or anapaestic (da-da-DUM). There are often four of these feet per line, making the poem, very loosely speaking, iambic tetrameter. Generally speaking the poem has a sing-song feel to it, like a nursery rhyme. This makes sense, because not only is the chimney sweep a child (making childish rhythms appropriate), but he is also singing the "notes of woe." This poem, after all, is take from the Songs of Experience—it becomes a song of the child's misery.
There are a couple of interesting metrical effects to note at individual points in the poem. First of all, there is the double stress of "weep! weep!" that emphasizes the uncontrollable crying of the little boy (and other sweeps like him) in line 2. Then there is the solemn iambic momentum in line 7:
They clothed | me in | the clothes | of death
This has a very serious tone, fitting with the darkness and sadness of the subject. Its meter is steady and predictable, reflecting this solemn tone. Contrast this with line 9, when the speaker talks about his natural state of youthful joy and happiness:
"And because | I am hap- | py and dance | and sing
This line is mostly anapaestic, except for its final foot, and has a light, almost dance-like quality. This helps the poem draw out the distinction between these two contrary states: youth and freedom on the one hand, organized religion, exploitation and restriction on the other.
The poem also employs contrasting meters in lines 3 and 4.
"Where are | thy fa- | ther and mo- | ther? say?"
"They are both | gone up | to the church | to pray.Here, the initial speaker's question starts off immediately with a stress, capturing how concerned the speaker is. Meanwhile, the sweep responds with an anapest, its singsong rhythm immediately conveying that a child is speaking. Additionally, the two unstressed syllables that begin this foot capture the weakness of the child.
So, throughout the poem, meter captures the opposing states of innocence and experience, happiness and exploitation.
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Rhyme Scheme
"The Chimney Sweeper" has a rhyme scheme that runs:
AABB CACA EFEF
The first stanza, then, is a quatrain made of two rhyming couplets, whereas the following two stanzas feature alternating rhyme sounds. The change in the rhyme scheme from stanza one to stanza two captures the change in speakers. The sweep starts speaking in line 4, and the different pattern of rhymes reflects that a new voice has entered the poem. And generally speaking, the rhymes help give the poem a childlike feel—it's almost like a nursery rhyme. This, of course, makes sense, because childhood—and the exploitation of childhood—is the poem's main subject.
There are a couple of Individually interesting moments to note. The "heath"/"death" rhyme between lines 5 and 7 is only a partial rhyme, suggesting that something is not quite right. This speaks to the way that the chimney sweep's natural enjoyment of being outdoors has been replaced by a kind of death—the death of his childhood. Instead, he has to put himself in harm's way, climbing dangerous chimneys full of toxic fumes. The heath, then, is replaced by death.
Notice, too, how the rhymes in lines 6 and 8 are taken from lines 1 and 2. This makes them like a kind of refrain, making the poem more song-like—and, through the repetition of "woe," even more tragic.
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“The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Speaker
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The main speaker of the poem is a chimney sweep—the "little black thing among the snow." But he doesn't actually take over until line 4.The first three lines, then, belong to some other speaker. This speaker is deliberately anonymous—only present long enough to set up the chimney sweeper's speech. This initial speaker could be thought of as Blake, or as the reader—or merely a stranger. Whoever they are, they are clearly an adult and are aware that the boy is suffering in a state of neglect.
After the first three lines, the chimney sweep is able to tell his tale, continuing all the way till the end of the poem. (It's worth noting that though most chimney sweeps were boys, there were some female sweeps too.)This should be contrasted with the first "The Chimney Sweeper" poem from Songs of Innocence. Whereas in that poem, the sweep comes across as sadly indoctrinated by what the authorities tell him, this sweep talks from experience (which makes sense, as the poem appears specifically in Songs of Experience). This sweep, then, has perspective and understanding on why he finds himself in such a dire situation.
He knows that his parents and, more widely, organized religion are to blame for his exploitation. He talks wisely, and is able to neatly sum up the hypocrisy of the age through the paradox in the final line: "Who make up a heaven of our misery." That is, the Church and society thrive on exploitation. One interesting thing to consider is whether this sweep might be a kind of ghost or visitation—in line 7 he states that he wears the "clothes of death," hinting that he is possibly speaking from beyond earthly experience itself. Whatever the case, it's clear that society has doomed him to a short and difficult existence.
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“The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Setting
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The poem appears to be set on a winter's day. It has been snowing, which makes the boy's sooty appearance stand out starkly against the pure white backdrop. After that, though, the poem doesn't develop its setting much—nor does it need to. The setting is mainly used just to set up the encounter with the sweep, and from line 4 he takes over to tell his tale of misery and oppression.
That said, the poem does certainly feel like it is set around the time of its writing—the late 1700s. Taken in the context of Songs of Innocence and Experience as a whole, the poem could be imagined as taking place in industrial London at the end of the 18th century, an environment characterized by poverty and pollution. The fact that the poem is about a chimney sweep, a common profession for children at this time, contributes to this sense of the setting. Additionally, the mention of a King could possibly refer to King George III, who was the British monarch at the time the poem was written and first published.
Lines 5 and 6 do briefly refer to nature, which is part of what the young sweep describes as his natural state—joy, playfulness, being outdoors, essentially just being a kid. The mention of a "heath" mirrors the "green plain" in its partner poem in Songs of Innocence. This brief mention helps contrast the poem's bleak environment with the idea of a happier coexistence with nature.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)”
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Literary Context
"The Chimney Sweeper" was published as part of the Experience section of William Blake's best-known work, Songs of Innocence and Experience (first published in 1794). This book of poems expresses specific morals, though these morals are often full of ambiguity. The book is divided into two sections, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Poems are paired across sections, so that one poem is spoken from an "innocent" perspective and one poem from the more cynical perspective of "experience."
Blake was also influenced by John Milton, whose Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained examined humankind's relationship to God in the form of epic poems. Beyond poetry, religious scholarship also had a profound influence on Blake, particularly the work of Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg was a Swedish Lutheran theologian who, like Blake, experienced powerful spiritual visions.
Blake worked and supported himself as a painter, printmaker, and engraver (in fact, he produced fully illustrated, color etchings of all his own books). However, he wasn't well-known as a poet, and most who knew his poetry considered him a madman. As a result, there's a very individualistic, even isolated quality to Blake's work—it is radical, prophetic, and rebellious.
Blake was a visionary poet in all senses of the term. Not only did he propose a highly unique spiritual vision of reality, but he also literally had a vision of angels and other spiritual phenomena. These visions in turn feed into the prophetic quality of his writing. Historically, Blake has been associated with Romanticism, a movement that included Blake's more famous contemporaries William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge. Like Blake, the Romantic poets held childhood, the imagination, and the power of nature in high esteem. Yet Blake's work is so strange and unique that calling him a Romantic doesn't do full justice to his work. It may be best to think of him as a singular entity in English literature.
Perhaps the most essential element of the poem's literary context is its partner poem in Songs of Innocence (this other poem has the same title, showing that they effectively come as a pair). This poem of "Innocence" essentially says that young, exploited chimney sweeps need to be "good" and "dutiful" in exchange for God's love. Meanwhile, the Experience poem (the one that this guide covers) makes it abundantly clear that the conclusion in the first poem isn't meant to be taken at face value.
Historical Context
The period during which children were forced into chimney sweeping lasted, roughly, from the Great Fire of London (1666) to the abolition of the practice in 1875. After the Great Fire, regulations made chimneys more narrow and angular, so that only children could fit in them to clean. It was a horrific form of work. The soot was carcinogenic, and sweeps were sometimes burned, trapped, or asphyxiated.
The speaker in this poem has probably been working as a climbing boy. He'd have been part of a gang of chimney sweepers led by a master sweep—an adult—who was in turn paid by the state authorities to take on children for work. Although this master sweep had to provide lodgings and meals to their group, he didn't have to pay them, and there was little oversight. Again, it was a pretty miserable existence.
During the time Blake was writing, Industrial Revolution was accelerating, leading to increased pollution and to the exploitation both of the poor and the natural world. Blake saw these changes as threats to humankind. In his poem "London," he describes industrial society as a form of physical and mental enslavement—as "mind-forg'd manacles." As evidence of this sentiment, it was during this time that the use of chimneys and chimney sweeps increased greatly.
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More “The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)” Resources
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External Resources
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Blake's Visions — Writer Iain Sinclair on Blake's religious visions.
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Full Text of Songs of Innocence and Experience — Full text in which "The Chimney Sweeper" is collected, from Project Gutenberg.
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"The Chimney Sweeper" Illustrated — How the poem looked when Blake originally published it—produced through the process of illuminated printing.
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The Two Chimney Sweepers — An interesting comparison of this poem with its partner in Songs of Innocence.
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Blake's Radicalism — Here Sinclair discusses Blake's radicalism.
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Blake's Illustrations and Other Poems — A closer look at some of Blake's poems, featuring their original illustrated pages, from the Tate organization, which holds a large collection of Blake originals.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Blake
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