Image Description
The illustration seems to depict chimney
sweeper Tom Dacre's dream of liberation for himself and his fellow sweeps by an angel, who
releases them from their "coffins of black" to run "naked" down a
"green plain" and "wash in a river" (lines 12-16). Against a
leafy background of plants or perhaps trees are twelve(?) small figures. At bottom right a
gowned adult bends forward, reaching toward a nude figure emerging from the earth or one
of the coffins of the text. Across the rest of the bottom of the plate are nude figures
standing or running with their arms raised in various positions. Two pairs are embracing.
Blue washes suggest sky above the background foliage and perhaps the slight suggestion of
a river far left. Behind the gowned adult a tree grows up the right margin and becomes
visually linked to the interlinear decorations.
The text and margins are busy with vegetative forms (leaves,
vines, etc.) and at least five tiny human figures: a chimney sweeper carrying a bag of
soot and walking to the right within the "C" of the title, a pair of figures
sitting on the tendril above "Sweeper" in the title, and a pair of figures
sitting on the vine or tree right of lines 13-14. The capital letters of the title and the
lower-case "y" have extravagant extensions with occasional leaves and perhaps
flowers. The extension at the top of the "S" joins the vegetation in the right
margin to wrap around the right end of the title and descend as a loopy vine in the right
margin. Other bits of vine-like structures--some of them extensions of the marginal
vegetation, some of letters in the text--fill the spaces between quatrains of text, while
the tree and other vegetation in the right margin fill spaces at the ends of short lines.