William Blake (1757-1827)

Songs of Innocence and Experience 

• poems appearing in Innocence have a counterpart in Experience with a different perspective of the world
• e.g. "The Lamb" is in Innocence and "The Tyger" is in Experience

"The Lamb"

 Little Lamb, who made thee?
    Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight;
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
    Little Lamb, who made thee?
    Dost thou know who made thee?

    Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
    Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
    Little Lamb, God bless thee!
    Little Lamb, God bless thee!

"The Tyger"

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

"Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau"

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on; 'tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.

The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of Light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• treatise on how to think beyond confining limits, on how to value energy and excitement and not be restrained by conventional patterns of thought
• consists of 24 plates
• has at its heart an opposition between Heaven, conceived as an image of restraint and passivity, and Hell, an image of energy and action
• in the 4th plate we hear the Devil who makes 3 crucial claims:
• man has no body distinct from his soul; for that call'd body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age
• energy is the only life, and is from the body, and reason is the bound or outward circumference of energy
• energy is eternal delight
• "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
• "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."
• "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
• "The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction."
• "Exuberance is Beauty."
• "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."

Visions of the Daughters of Albion

• the maiden Oothoon goes fearlessly to her lover Theotormon
• she is raped by Bromion
• Theotormon regards her as defiled
• in his jealousy he ties Oothoon and Bromion back to back

I cry, Love! Love! Love! Happy, happy love, free as the mountain wind!
Can that be love that drinks another as a sponge drinks water,
That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the day,
To spin a web of age around him, grey and hoary, dark,
Till his eyes sicken at the fruit that hangs before his sight?
Such is self-love that envies all, a creeping skeleton
With lamplike eyes watching around the frozen marriage bed.

"London"

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning Church appalls ;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.