How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! (1-3)
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,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: [...] (5-6)
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.
Quote #4
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. (10-12)
The speaker again reiterates the idea that children employed as chimney sweepers are dead in some way (their innocence is gone, that's for sure). The rhyme on "Jack" and "black" emphasizes the connection between the black death of the coffin and the chimney sweeper named Jack.
Quote #5
Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind; (17-18)
The children rise on clouds, almost as if they were on their way to Heaven. In a way, they haven't been released from death, but from their horrible lives. Now, in the dream at least, they're well on their way to a happy afterlife… maybe.
Quote #6
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags and our brushes to work. (21-22)
In many ways the children are already dead. Dark doesn't just describe the absence of light, but also the condition of their lives. It recalls the "coffins of black" and suggests that children are sort of like zombies—the walking dead. Plus, the fact that "dark" kind of rhymes with "work" suggests that there is some connection between working and death. Yep, we can empathize with that one.