A young chimney sweeper speaks with unnerving gentleness. His mother died, his father sold him before his tongue could form “sweep,” so he wept it instead. He comforts Tom, whose lamb-like curls are shaved, saying the soot can’t stain his white hair—a loving delusion. Tom dreams an angel unlocks thousands of sweepers from black coffins; they race across a green plain, wash in a river, and rise naked into the sun. The angel promises God as a father if Tom is good. In the morning, they rise in the dark, grab their brushes, and head into the cold. But Tom is mysteriously warm. The closing line says duty brings no harm, yet the irony is gutting. The speaker’s trust makes the abuse he lives with ache all the more. The poem leaves you with a tender, trembling sorrow.
The Chimney-Sweeper — Summary
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 let 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.