The Chimney-Sweeper
A little black thing among the snow,Crying! ‘weep! weep!’ in notes of woe!‘Where are thy father and mother? Say!’—‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.
‘Because I was happy upon the heath,And smiled 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 and dance and sing,They think they have done me no injury,And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,Who made up a heaven of our misery.’
About this text
The Chimney-Sweeper is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Project Gutenberg ebook #1934; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, The Chimney-Sweeper, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-songs/the-chimney-sweeper-2.html, id L02894.
Form and metre
The Chimney-Sweeper is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.6 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB snowA · woeA · sayB · prayB
- 2 -A-A heath · snowA · death · woeA
- 3 A-A- singA · injury · kingA · misery
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A little black thing among the snow, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Crying! ‘weep! weep!’ in notes of woe! | 8 | /˘······ |
| ‘Where are thy father and mother? Say!’— | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray. | 10 | ·········· |
| ‘Because I was happy upon the heath, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| And smiled among the winter’s snow, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| They clothed me in the clothes of death, | 8 | ········ |
| And taught me to sing the notes of woe. | 9 | ········· |
| ‘And because I am happy and dance and sing, | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| They think they have done me no injury, | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| And are gone to praise God and His priest and king, | 11 | ··········· |
| Who made up a heaven of our misery.’ | 12 | ····/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.