“The Chimney Sweeper” first appeared in Blake’s 1789 collection of poems Songs of Innocence, containing 19 short poems accompanied by Blake’s own engraved illustrations. Most of the poems are about children, emphasizing their guileless joy in life, even in the face of hardship. Blake uses the conventions of traditional children’s poetry to criticize contemporary approaches to educating children, especially those orphaned or abandoned, left to the care of their masters or public charities. The primary objective of such education was to promote industriousness and acquiescence to authority. The last line of the poem exemplifies that goal: “So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm” (Line 24). The speaker has learned the lesson his guardians want him to learn: Do what you are told or else! In another poem, “Holy Thursday,” Blake mocks these “wise guardians of the poor” (William Blake, “Holy Thursday,” Line 11), who deftly create the public appearance of children’s welfare while enforcing rigid order and uniform thinking designed to keep the children obedient.

Blake’s real purpose becomes clear in the two-part collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), which combines “Songs of Innocence” with 26 other poems, called “Songs of Experience.” This collection’s subtitle—“shewing the two contrary states of the human soul”—indicates that the poems in the two sections complement each other and should be read as such.