The poem's speaker is unidentified, although he is one of the youthful chimney sweepers. In this poem, he tells us about his new coworker and a dream he experienced while sleeping at work. The poem was published during the Great Industrial Revolution in Britain. There were many young men like the poet's speaker who worked as chimney sweeps. They traveled around the country with an army sergeant named George Hancock cleaning out buildings for money. Chimneys were used in homes during this time to remove smoke from fires inside buildings. If not cleaned regularly, they would become clogged with soot and ash which could cause fire damage or even lead to your house burning down. Chimney sweeps went into buildings to clean out their chimneys. They used tools such as brushes and buckets to remove any debris or soot from inside chimneys. In this poem, the speaker tells us that he has found a new friend in another young man who also works as a chimney sweep. He says that his new friend lives in a house where there is "joy and peace after pain". The speaker thinks about what joy and peace are and then decides to try to find them for himself someday. The last line of the poem states that the "chimney sweep saw dreams" while asleep at his job. We can assume from this that when he sleeps at night, he has dreams.