These poems concern themselves with sociological issues. Indicate these problems. How do the poems deal with them?...

"The Chimney Sweeper" is the title of two poems written by William Blake. The first was penned in 1789, and the second in 1794. Both deal with the interconnected problems of child labor and poverty.

The first poem is narrated by a boy who was "sold" to work, probably to one of the workhouses common in England at the time, as a chimney sweeper. In the first couple of lines, the reader learns the circumstances leading to the decision:

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry "'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"

So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

The boy was born to poverty. His father likely could not afford to care for him and tend to his own work, so the child is "sold" while still practically a toddler. We know this because he could "scarcely" pronounce the word "sweep." By day, the child sweeps chimneys; at night, he sleeps in filthy quarters provided by the workhouses. 

Blake details how such conditions are not only inhumane, but also rob children of their innocence:

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head 

That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd, so I said,

"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

The simile comparing Tom's hair to that of a lamb, as well as the association of white with purity, indicates the boy's preciousness. 

Redemption comes through a dream that Tom has and shares with the narrator:

As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,

Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black;

"Coffins of black" indicate that the boys will die as chimney sweeps. The fact that they are "lock'd up" reveals the inescapable nature of their situation. Then, they are released by "an Angel who had a bright key...and set them all free":

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,

And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

The children escape back into nature—an original state of purity—in which they can run "naked & white," reclaiming their innocence. The lesson from the dream is that, if Tom and the others are good boys, they will have God for their father and "never want joy." Thus, they are not really orphans; and they were never truly abandoned because God does not abandon His children. This knowledge leaves Tom feeling "happy and warm" despite the "cold" morning. The boys resolve to do their duty and remain faithful to God. As a result, "they need not fear harm." Blake's dedication to Christian teachings, as well as his sense of their utility in times of hardship, is on display here.

The second version, however, takes a less positive view of religion. The boy from the previous poem, or a more miserable version of him, is reintroduced as "a little black thing among the snow / Crying 'weep, 'weep, in notes of woe!" The boy who told Tom Dacre not to cry is now the one weeping. Moreover, this boy is not an orphan, but has been abandoned by parents who appear to be religious zealots. Unlike the previous poem, the reasons for sending the boy to the workhouse are made less clear. Indeed, it seems that these parents are simply punishing and cruel:

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow;

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

He was content in nature, which would have put him at odds with their faith. He enjoyed life, when their focus was on the afterlife ("clothed me in the clothes of death").

The final lines condemn both the parents and the Christian church:

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,

Who make up a heaven of our misery.

Once again, there is criticism of adults who have neglected children and robbed them of their innocence. These people are remiss because their focus on heaven causes them to neglect concerns on Earth. Moreover, they never question the suffering that is inherent in our existence.

The next two poems are by William Wordsworth, another Romantic poet. Wordsworth wrote "London, 1802" shortly after his return from France. He wrote in 1843 how he had been "struck...with the vanity and parade of our own country...as contrasted with the quiet, and I may say the desolation, that the revolution had produced in France."

In the first line, the narrator calls upon John Milton, the 17th-century poet. He argues that England needs him, for the country has become "a fen / Of stagnant waters." The adjective "stagnant" is key. Though there is still life in England, which is indicated by its comparison to "a fen," there is no movement, no progression. It makes sense that Wordsworth would see England in this way after returning from France, where so much had changed.

The English, the narrator argues, have become bereft "of inward happiness" due to the pursuit of wealth, wars, and empty concerns with religious piety ("altar, sword, and pen, / Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower"). He declares that they "are selfish men." Therefore, they must look to great ancestors, such as Milton, to "raise us up...And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power."

The poem is both nostalgic, in its call for a return to loftier virtues represented by Milton, and progressive: the narrator bemoans the sense that England has become "stagnant," that nothing has changed.

"The World Is Too Much with Us" is also a critique of national values. People are consumed by materialism and avarice:

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

To give one's heart away suggests a lack of integrity. People, according to the narrator, have become disconnected from nature. In seeking material objects, we have forgotten that there is abundance in nature. As a result, "we are out of tune." 

There is a critique, too, of Christianity, for those who call themselves Christians exhibit the least virtue. Therefore, the narrator exclaims:

Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

The narrator could be calling out to the Christian God, or just crying out in frustration, or both. He imagines that the pagans had greater vision, more appreciation for the world around them. He wishes to maintain their ability to see the greatness within nature, so that he will feel "less forlorn," or hopeless in his own society.

"The Cry of the Children" comes later, in 1843, during the Victorian Era. This poem was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The poem was written in response to a report of a parliamentary commission regarding the labor of children in mines and factories. One of Browning's friends, R. H. Horne, was a member of the commission. Many of the details in the poem are derived from the report.

It is important to note that the horrors of life in workhouses and textile mills were more widely discussed and written about in the Victorian Age. Industrialism had made Great Britain wealthy and contributed to the rise of the middle class, but it was also accountable for the inhumane treatment of men, women, and children in the working class.

The first stanza evokes the pain and hardship suffered by working-class children. Their misery increases with the years. Their mothers cannot comfort them. As with Blake's poem, analogies are made to "young lambs," but the "young, young children" are also compared to "young birds," "young fawns," and "young flowers." Browning is heavy-handed here in her emphasis of the adjective "young," but it seems that this is her way of imploring the reader to understand how horrific it is for children to exist in such pain "in the playtime of the others, / In the country of the free." The "others" are not only other young, living beings, but also the children of her middle-class and wealthy readers. She reminds them that England is a "free" country, though some appear to be in a form of bondage.

In the fourth stanza, the children speak for themselves, like a tragic Greek chorus. They are content to die young: "it may happen / That we die before our time," and they recount the death of their friend, Little Alice, who "died last year." They have become hardened to their reality ("binding up their hearts away from breaking"). As in the Blake poem, Browning implores them to leave the mine and the city and return to nature; but the children are too "weary" to "run or leap" and are disinterested in "meadows" except as places to sleep.

Also, as in the second version of "The Chimney Sweeper," there is a sense of God having abandoned the children, and of Christian dogma being insufficient for addressing their concerns: 

"Who is God that He should hear us,

While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?

When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word...

Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,

Hears our weeping anymore?

God, the Christian church, and the adults who are supposed to protect them, have failed these children. Their sobs are muffled by "the iron wheels" of industry. This line echoes Wordsworth's contempt for materialism. Concerns for production and pecuniary gain have made us distant from our own natures—less humane, less virtuous.

To conclude, all five poems criticize the inhumanity that had been wrought by the Industrial Revolution: child labor, poverty, dire work conditions, and poor housing. The three poets also bemoan the lack of a proper response from the Church to this issues, and criticize greedy adults for their neglect of children in favor of wealth.