Chimney Sweeper
The irony of the last six lines of “The Chimney Sweeper” in Songs of Innocence arises from the contradiction between what Tom has come to feel and what the reader understands. ... This issue is revisited in the second “The Chimney Sweeper.” The other “Chimney Sweeper” (from experience) addresses the same issue as the first. ... Finally, the third stanza says that because the child is still happy, even as a chimney sweep, the parents go to prey for his soul (because they don’t think he will get into heaven without having hard life.) The Innocence version matches the Experience version in that in the Innocence version the speaker’s father made him a sweeper at an early age as well.