The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence) Death Quotes Page 1
(Line)
| Quote #1 When my mother died I was very young, |
We're gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is a kind of metaphorical murder. This father literally took away his kid's personhood. The guy who buys the child is guilty of the same crime, a crime that doesn't see children as children but as objects or slaves to be exploited for profit.
| Quote #2 There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, |
These lines remind us of the expression "lambs to the slaughter." The shaving of Tom's head is the first step in a process or career that will slowly kill him. It may not literally kill him, but it will definitely destroy a part of his life that he can never have back.
| Quote #3 ["]You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." (8) |
The fact that Tom has white hair suggests that he is an old man, or that he resembles an old man. And since the elderly are generally a whole lot closer to death than the young, the line suggests that Tom's aging much more quickly than he should. He's still a child, after all.
