"And wash in a river, and shine in the sun...."See in text(The Chimney Sweeper)
The setting of the dream is an Edenic afterlife. Each of the details Blake chooses suggests a return to a state of grace. The “wash in the river” promises a cleansing of the chimney soot and, more figuratively, a baptismal cleansing of sin. The “shine in the sun” draws again on the metaphor of brightness—the white hair and bright key—as purity. The sun, then, becomes a purifying force.
