Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
William Blake
- 64 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
William Blake
About This Book
As both painter and poet, William Blake (1757ā1827) was a powerful and visionary artist whose two early collections of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, contain memorable lyric verses embodying the emerging spirit of Romanticism. The two works were published together in 1794 with the subtitle, "Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul."
The poems of Songs of Innocence describe childhood states of naturalness and purity in delicately beautiful lyrics that reveal a child's unspoiled and beatific view of life and human nature. In Songs of Experience the mood and tone darken, the poems suggesting the bitter corruptions and disillusionment that await the innocent. The contrast between the two sets of lyrics is perhaps at its most acute in the poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger, " the latter ultimately expressing wonderment at the seemingly paradoxical coexistence of good and evil. The full texts of all the poems in the 1794 edition of both collections are included in this volume.
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Songs of Innocence
Introduction
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
So I piped with merry chear.
āPiper, pipe that song again;ā
So I piped, he wept to hear.
Sing thy songs of happy chear:ā
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
In a book, that all may read.ā
So he vanishād from my sight,
And I pluckād a hollow reed,
And I stainād the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
The Shepherd
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.
And he hears the ewes tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.
Infant Joy
I am but two days old.ā
What shall I call thee?
āI happy am,
Joy is my name.ā
Sweet joy befall thee!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while,
Sweet joy befall thee!
On Anotherās Sorrow
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see anotherās grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
And not feel my sorrowās share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow fillād?
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small birdās grief & care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,
Pouring pity in their breast;
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infantās tear;
Wiping all our tears away?
O! no, never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
He becomes an infant small;
He becomes a man of woe;
He doth feel the sorrow too.
And thy maker is not by;
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy maker is not near.
That our grief he may destroy;
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan.
The School Boy
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
And spend many an anxious hour,
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learningās bower,
Worn throā with the dreary shower.
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are stripād
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and careās dismay,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?
HOLY THURSDAY
The children walking two & two, in red & blue & green,
Grey-headed beadles walkād before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paulās they like Thamesā waters flow.
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands.
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among.
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor;
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.