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 & in soot I sleep. There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd: so I said "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
 * ==//__The Chimney Sweeper__//== ==//__from Songs of Innocence__//==

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 lock'd up in coffins of black.

And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he open'd 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. Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

[[image:soi16.jpg width="249" height="311" align="center" caption="Photograph from Wikimedia Commons"]]
|| ==//__The Chimney Sweeper__//== ==f//__rom Songs of Experience__//== A little black thing among the snow, Crying ''weep! 'weep!' in notes of woe! "Where are thy father & mother? say?" "They are both gone up to the church to pray. "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.

"And because I am happy & dance & sing, "They think they have done me no injury, "And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, "Who make up a heaven of our misery.

[[image:37_blakeic.JPG width="336" height="528" align="center" caption="Photograph from The Romantic Audience Project"]]
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In //The Chimney Sweeper// from //Songs of Innocence//, the narrator and the little boy, Tom, are hopeful. Although they were sold as chimney sweepers, and they realize that they are the victims of injustice, they still believe that if they do all of their duties, God will take care of them. In //The Chimney Sweeper// from //Songs of Experience//, the little boys are bitter towards their parents. They realize that there parents have done wrong to them, and the children are paying the consequences. It seems as though the children used to be hopeful that someone will take care of them, as they were in the //Songs of Innocence//. Now that time has passed, though, the children have grown bitter towards their parents. Although nothing physically has changed about their duties or their lives, their feelings are progressing from those of acceptance to those of bitterness.

Photographs borrowed from:
http://ssad.bowdoin.edu:8668/comments/The+Chimney+Sweeper-image