I chose “The Chimney sweepers” by William Blake, the image gives a representation of how hard and depressive the lives of children were. I saw this image and it helped me understand the poem completely, a little boy is shown walking alone as to how his mother died and the father sold him as told in the first stanza of the poem. As a kid he could barely say “weep” and now he cries in the rain, so no one witnesses, because to him his tears held no value as he wasn’t heard as a child and was unwillingly forced into being a sweeper and the image portrays that. Cleaning chimney’s all day, they would get covered in soot and the image represents how the soot is being fallen everywhere. In the fourth stanza tom dreams about the angel coming and setting them free and, in the image, shows how the little boy is looking towards the sky waiting for the angel to come so that he can be set free, now everyday he goes to work looking at the sky wondering if the angels would come for his rescue.
This image is the image that Blake created to accompany the “Chimney Sweeper” poem that is part of Songs of Experience (It begins, “A little black thing among the snow…”). He illustrated the “Chimney Sweeper” poem that you are referring to here in a very different way. You might want to take a look and see what you can glean from that illustration. You are right to see the poem as a critique of the practice of using children as chimney sweepers, which was common practice in Blake’s day. Do you think that Blake actually believes that an angel will come to redeem or rescue these child laborers?