This poem's speaker is a little kid who was sold into the chimney-sweeping industry after his mother died. He tells the story of another chimney sweeper, Tom Dacre, who grieved when his hair was shaved to keep vermin and soot out of it. The first thing you should know about this poem is that it was not written by Robert Burns. It was written many years later by an American poet named Henry Timrod. But since there's no way to tell whether or not someone has shaved their head for reason other than mourning, I'm going with Burns as the originator of this practice. Now back to Timrod... He wrote this poem while working as an editor for the Bartlett's Journal in 1829. At the time, children were sold into slavery from Massachusetts to Maryland for $50 to $200. They were usually between the ages of 7 and 14. Timrod himself was born in South Carolina but grew up in Massachusetts. He had already been writing poems for several years when he wrote this one, which explains why it sounds so familiar. The first line is actually quoted from Burns: "Oh! what a world of grief and woe / Is swept away by young Benjy!"