It seems as though Blake tries to provoke a feeling of guilt in the reader. In the last line of the first stanza in poem 1, we as readers become involved in the poem: "So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep". These poems were undoubtedly designed to make people take action, or at the least, feel some sense of guilt for the unfair lives of the young chimney sweeper boys. .
Through both poems, Blake uses very simple, every day language, and the form of the poems is a typical nursery rhyme. The poems have the same and simple structure through all the stanzas. The effect of using a simple language and a simple form is a clever way of emphasizing that the story is told from a child's point of view, yet with the depth of an underlying message. Another effect by using the form of a nursery rhyme is that it creates an even greater contrast to the content of the poems; trying to make us see that these boys do not belong in the profession as chimney sweepers. Both poems have the same theme. They are about the unjust lives of boys who were forced to work in horrible conditions in order for them to stay alive. They came from very poor homes where their parents were forced to give them up, because they could no longer afford to keep them. Another theme is their lack of childhood. They can no longer enjoy the world as carefree children, but are forced to live a life of burdens and hard labour. One element that differs between the two speakers is their amount of experience. When reading poem 1, I was left with the impression that the speaker was innocent, nave and a good-natured little boy. He does not question his current life situation, because he does not know any better. Even though he tells us that his father sold him, he does not seem to give direct blame to his father or being bitter about it. Because of this, the speaker maintains the full sense of being an innocent child. The speaker in poem 2 is still a child and shows some innocence, although he presumably is somewhat older and more experienced.