There is a hint of criticism here in Tom Dacre's dream and in the boys' subsequent actions, however. The next three stanzas recount Tom Dacre's somewhat apocalyptic dream of the chimney sweepers’ “heaven.” However, the final stanza finds Tom waking up the following morning, with him and the speaker still trapped in their dangerous line of work. Tom is upset about his lot in life, so the speaker comforts him until he falls asleep. The second stanza introduces Tom Dacre, a fellow chimney sweep who acts as a foil to the speaker. The first stanza introduces the speaker, a young boy who has been forced by circumstances into the hazardous occupation of chimney sweeper. “The Chimney Sweeper” comprises six quatrains, each following the AABB rhyme scheme, with two rhyming couplets per quatrain. When Tom awakens, he and the speaker gather their tools and head out to work, somewhat comforted that their lives will one day improve. The angel tells Tom that if he is a good boy, he will have this paradise for his own. The newly freed children run through a green field and wash themselves in a river, coming out clean and white in the bright sun. An angel arrives with a special key that opens the locks on the coffins and sets the children free.
The speaker comforts Tom, who falls asleep and has a dream or vision of several chimney sweepers all locked in black coffins. He recounts the story of a fellow chimney sweeper, Tom Dacre, who cried when his hair was shaved to prevent vermin and soot from infesting it.
The speaker of this poem is a small boy who was sold into the chimney-sweeping business when his mother died.
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