The Chimney Sweeper
William Blake
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 & 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, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & 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 & 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 & 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 & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
"The Chimney Sweeper" is a poem by William Blake, published in his 1789 collection Songs of Innocence. The poem is told from the perspective of a young chimney sweep, a boy who has been sold into labor by his father. The sweep meets a new recruit to the chimney sweeping gang named Tom Dacre, who arrives terrified. After the speaker tries to reassure Tom, Tom dreams of an angel who sets the chimney sweeps free, allowing them to play in green fields and then ascend to heaven. This dream seems to suggest that if the boys are obedient workers, they'll get into heaven. Implicitly, though, the poem takes issue with this idea, suggesting that it's a form of indoctrination for the Church. The companion poem of the same title, published in Songs of Experience, makes this position—that promises of heavenly salvation are simply a means to exploit child labor—crystal clear.
Summary
I was just a little boy when my mother died. My father then sold me into the chimney sweep profession before I even knew how to speak. Since then, all I've done is sweep chimneys and sleep covered in dirt.
A new boy arrived one day; his name was Tom Dacre. He cried when his curly lamb-like hair was shaved off. I told him not to worry: with a shaven head, his beautiful locks wouldn't have to get dirty from all the chimney dust.
Later that night, Tom fell asleep. He had a vision in a dream. He saw row upon row of dead chimney sweepers in black coffins.
An angel came along with a key and unlocked the coffins, setting the sweeps free. Then they frolic in green fields, bathing in clear water and basking in the sun.
Naked, clean, and without their work implements, the sweeps rise up to heaven on clouds and play in the wind. The angel tells Tom that if he behaves well God will take care of him and make sure he is happy.
The next day, Tom woke up. We got out of bed before dawn and went with our bags and chimney brushes to our work. It was a cold morning but Tom seemed fine. If we all just work hard, nothing bad will happen.
Themes
Hardship and Childhood
“The Chimney Sweeper” is a bleak poem told from the perspective of a chimney sweep, a young boy living in 1700s London who has to earn a living doing the dangerous work of cleaning soot from people’s chimneys. The poem makes no efforts to romanticize this life, portraying it as intensely impoverished and tough. Indeed, the poem argues that this is a kind of exploitation that effectively robs the children of their childhood, stealing their freedom and joy.
Early on, the poem establishes a sense of the hardship in the lives of young poor boys in 18th century London. This isn’t a task that requires much imagination—chimney sweeping was terrible, dangerous, and exhausting work for children. The reader quickly learns that the speaker’s mother is dead, and that he was sold by his father into labor. Tom Dacre probably had a similar upbringing. Now, he's had his head forcibly shaved to improve his effectiveness as a sweep. Both children, then, are forced into a miserable world. Indeed, chimney sweeping makes up pretty much the entirety of the boys’ existence. They sweep all day, and sleep “in soot”—both in terms of being dirty when they go to bed, and in the way their daily hardship affects their dreams.
In fact, it’s in one of these dreams that Tom Dacre has the vision that contains the poem’s key message. This dream, however, starts bleakly. He imagines “That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack / Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.” The young sweep, then, is fully aware of the realities of his life—it’s going to be short, brutish, and nasty.
The poem then offers a brief glimpse of what childhood should actually be like, which is full of freedom, joy, and nature:
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
This section of the poem is effectively a pastoral—a representation of idyllic nature. The kind of instinctive behavior depicted here, the poem implies, is what the boys should be occupied with—not getting stuck in people's chimneys, working all day just to be able to eat. This vision seems to emerge from Tom's imagination instinctively, as though Tom knows deep down what childhood should be like.
All in all, then, the boys' hardships, combined with the innocence of this part of the dream, casts doubt on the truthfulness of the poem's conclusion—that the sweeps only need to "do their duty" in order for God to take care of them and make them happy.
Religion and Redemption
On the surface of it, "The Chimney Sweep" is a poem about salvation from a life of hardship. Young boys, forced into working London's chimneys, look to religion as a way of finding hope amid the misery. This hope, they seem to think, comes from the Christian religion. No matter the suffering in earthly life, each “good boy” who is well-behaved and dutiful will be rewarded with “joy” and “God for his father.” However, the poem questions whether this is actually true—and suggests it might just be a convenient way of making those boys into obedient little workers.
On a surface level, Tom's vision undoubtedly does offer a brief glimpse of hope and salvation. An angel visits him, bringing a message from God. This angel frees the dead boys, and they are allowed to frolic freely in nature before ascending to heaven. This part of the dream seems legitimate and rings true to Blake's ideas about childhood—that it should be free, imaginative, and joyful. Up there, in heaven, the children get to play, to be kids again—they “sport in the wind.” Religion, then, appears to provide solace in this life through the promise of joy and freedom in the next.
This religious fulfillment is linked to being a “good boy,” and here it’s possible to interpret the poem’s message in two ways. The poem could be taken at face value: being good results in access to heaven. But the poem also implicitly considers how religious belief is useful for getting people to accept the hardships in life. After all, what opportunity do the boys actually have to be “good,” considering all they really do is sweep chimneys and sleep? Perhaps being good means approaching this work with a sense of duty and attentiveness that masks how horrendous the work is. In fact, the poem seems to suggest that religion makes the boys accept the miserable conditions of their lives.
The poem thus concludes with a sense of uneasy resolution, as though Tom’s suffering is somehow solved by the angel’s visit. Both he and the speaker wake up the next morning, pick up their tools, and head out to work (almost as if they are adults going about their daily business). “[I]f all do their duty, they need not fear harm”—so the poem concludes. But it’s not difficult to detect a note of sadness in this moment, as though the truthfulness of this hope—and Tom’s dream—is only temporary, or even entirely false.
The poem’s ending can also be seen as a lack of resolution, then. It's unclear how long the promise of religious salvation can stave off the realities of suffering and hardship. Indeed, if read side-by-side with Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" from Songs of Experience (the poem here is from Songs of Innocence), the idea that the boys have been misled is pretty much impossible to avoid.
굴뚝 청소부
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.
어머니가 돌아가셨을 때 전 아주 어렸습니다.
그리고 아버지는 저를 팔아버렸어요. 아직 제 혀가
"'청소!' '청소!' '청소!' '청소!'" 라는 말도 제대로 외치지 못할 때,
그래서 나는 굴뚝들을 청소하며 숯 검댕 속에서 잠이 듭니다.
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,"
톰 데이커 라는 꼬마가 있는데, 양의 등처럼 곱슬곱슬한 그의 머리카락
들이 잘릴 때 울었어요, 그래서 나는 말했어요.
“울지 마, 톰! 신경 쓰지마, 왜냐면 너의 머리카락이 없으면
네 하얀 머리카락을 숯 검댕이가 더럽힐 일도 없잖아”
And so he was quit, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black.
그러자 톰은 울음을 그쳤고, 바로 그날 밤
톰은 잠을 자다가 꿈에서 굉장한 광경을 보았습니다!
수천 명의 청소부와, 딕, 조, 네드 그리고 잭이
모두 검은 관 속에 갇혀 있었어요.
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd 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.
이윽고 한 천사가 반짝이는 열쇠를 가지고 와서는
관들을 열어 주었고, 그들 모두를 자유롭게 해주었어요.
그러자 그들은 뛰고 웃으며 초록 들판을 달려 내려갔어요.
강에서 몸을 씻고, 태양 아래서 빛났어요.
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.
벌거벗은 하얀 몸으로, 다들 청소 가방을 뒤에 남겨 놓은 체
그들은 구름 위로 올라가 바람 속에서 놀았어요.
그러자 천사가 톰에게 말했어요, 만약 그가 착한 아이가 되면
하느님이 그의 아버지가 될 것이고 결코 즐거움이 부족하지 않을 거라고.
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.
그러다 톰은 깨어났고, 우리는 어둠 속에서 일어나
가방과 솔을 챙겨 일터로 향했어요.
비록 아침 공기는 차가웠지만, 톰은 행복하고 따뜻했어요;
그래요, 모두가 맡은 일을 한다면 그들은 해를 당할까봐 두려워할 필요가 없으니까요.
- 이 시는 영국의 산업혁명 당시 상황을 표현한 것으로 당시 영국에서는 가정 형편이 어려운 집안의 어린아이들이 다른 사람에게 팔려가 굴뚝청소부가 되어 고생하는 것을 단적으로 표현한 시이다.
- 이 시대에는 네 살과 다섯 살 소년들은 덩치가 작기 때문에 굴뚝을 청소하기 위해 팔려갔으며 동시에 이 아이들은 사회적으로 억압을 받았던 작은 존재였다.
- 또한 시의 내용을 통해서도 알 수 있듯이 굴뚝을 청소하는 아이들은 종종 옷을 벗고 옷을 잘 입지 않았으며 이 아이들은 대부분의 경우, 굴뚝에서 떨어지거나 그을음을 들이마시면서 폐 손상과 다른 끔찍한 질병으로 사망하기도 했다고 당시의 기록들이 전해진다.
- 윌리엄 블레이크의 『순수의 노래』(Songs of Innocence, 1789)에 수록된 『굴뚝 청소부Ⅰ(The Chimney SweeperⅠ)』에서 작가는 순결의 '굴뚝 청소부'에서 일과 고난을 통해 다음 생에 보상을 얻을 수 있다는 교회의 견해를 비판하는 것으로 해석될 수 있다.
- 이는 '모두 자신의 의무를 다한다면 그들은 해로울 필요가 없다'는 마지막 줄에서 관찰된 착취의 수용을 가져오는 것으로 블레이크는 이 시를 통해 위험성을 강조하면서 순수하고 순진한 견해, 이것이 아동 노동의 사회적 학대를 어떻게 허용하는지 보여주는 작품이라 할 수 있다.