The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience) Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

Soot is black; the child is, presumably covered in it, but he's also "black" in another way. He seems marked for death—he wears the "clothes of death" (7)—and stands in stark contrast to the wh...

It's kind of surprising but there's a lot of music in this sad poem. We have two references to "notes of woe," and in the last stanza the chimney sweeper says he is happy and sings and dances—or...

The sweeper tells the speaker two times that his parents have gone to church. But in this poem, that's definitely not a good thing. The child's parents, for example, are more concerned with their r...