The Complete Poems

by William Blake

  59 toad… in my ears Satan is found ‘Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve’ in Paradise Lost IV.800.

  87 Orcus A Latin name for Hell.

  5

  18 five daughters Five senses.

  24 Hela A Norse goddess of Hell in Gray’s ‘Descent of Odin’.

  33 Thirty… sons Compare the degeneration of the thirty cities of Africa in BU IX, p. 257 below.

  6

  5 This is the right & ready way Possible ironic allusion to Milton’s The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), comparably written in desperation during a political collapse.

  43 Let snakes rise Medusa was thus accursed by Athena.

  8

  10 one law ‘One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression’ (conclusion of MHH). See also VDA 4.22.

  37–41 Compelld to pray… my thirsty hissings Tiriel’s story parallels that of Satan in Paradise Lost. Satan is compelled to worship, and rebels. He becomes a subtle serpent in Paradise. In Pl x.504–77 Satan and his followers are transformed unwillingly into serpents, and forced to chew a seeming fruit of knowledge which turns to ashes: ‘Thus were they plagued/And worn with famine long, and ceaseless hiss.’

  Songs of Innocence and of Experience

  The Songs of Innocence were composed c. 1784–90. Drafts of ‘Nurse’s Song’, ‘The Little Boy lost’ and ‘Holy Thursday’ appear in An Island in the Moon. The illuminated volume was first published alone (1789), later incorporated in the combined volume Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), but also sometimes issued separately thereafter.

  The Songs of Experience were composed for the most part between 1790 and 1792 (see Notebook drafts, pp. 134–61 below). But ‘The Little Girl Lost’, ‘The Little Girl Found’, ‘The School Boy’ and ‘The Voice of the Ancient Bard’ first appeared in Innocence and were then transferred to Experience. ‘To Tirzah’ does not appear in five copies, and may be from 1805 or later (Erdman). There are twenty-one known copies of SI and twenty-seven of SIE. The order of the poems within each group varies, but eight copies follow the arrangement given here.

  The form of these songs may suggest Tudor and Jacobean lyric, Wesleyan hymns, and nursery rhymes. In part, the form also derives from Isaac Watts (1674–1748), whose Divine and Moral Songs in Easy Language (1715), a chapbook of short poems intended for children, was still popular in B.’s day. Several of B.’s poems implicitly criticize Watts’s religion and morality.

  SONGS OF INNOCENCE

  THE ECCHOING GREEN

  Title A village common.

  The scene, the day–night cycle and the images of animated nature corresponding with human activity all parallel Spenser’s Epithalamion.

  THE LAMB

  Title ‘The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”’ (John 1:29). See also the conclusion of B.’s prose tract There is No Natural Religion: ‘Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is,’ p. 76 above.

  THE LITTLE BLACK BOY

  The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in 1787, and many artists and writers were involved in this movement. B. too opposed slavery, but the plea of this poem is more fundamentally against doctrines of racial and religious superiority. Immediate targets may have been Watts’s lyrics ‘Praise for Birth and Education in a Christian Land’ and ‘Praise for the Gospel’, in both of which a little English boy thanks God for making him born a Christian, and pities the heathen.

  14 to bear the beams of love cf. Watts’s ‘Grace Shining and Nature Fainting’ (Horae Lyricae, 1709): ‘Nor is my soul refined enough/To bear the beaming of his love,/And feel his warmer smiles./When shall I rest this drooping head?/I love, I love the sun, and yet I want the shade.’

  16 but a cloud Dante’s Purgatorio XXVIII.90 compares the body to a cloud.

  25 Ill shade him The two boys will be ‘free’ of their bodies – yet one is still darker, one whiter and needing assistance. Why? The paradox is adumbrated by Job 19:26: ‘though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God’.

  THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER

  This poem may be read in two contrary ways: 1. As an indictment of a society which enslaves children both physically and spiritually, promising heaven hereafter in exchange for obedient suffering here, its conclusion in favour of ‘duty’ is bitterly ironic (see ‘An answer to the parson’, p. 155 below). 2. As a celebration of the boys’ imagination, the conclusion is positive, the happiness and warmth are not delusive but real, and ‘duty’ means seeing and feeling the delightful reality of spiritual life. See B.’s letter to Hayley, Oct. 1803: ‘… now I have lamented over the dead horse let me laugh and be merry… for as Man liveth not by bread alone I shall live altho I should want bread – nothing is necessary to me but to do my Duty and to rejoice in the exceeding joy that is always poured on my Spirit’ (Letters, ed. Keynes, 100–101).

  3 weep weep Ironically foreshortened pronunciation of the street-cry ‘Sweep!’

  THE LITTLE BOY LOST

  A draft of this poem appears in An Island in the Moon.

  8 the vapour A will-o’-the-wisp; the ‘wand’ ring light’ of the next poem. The design shows the boy pursuing a light, perhaps mistaking it for his father.

  LAUGHING SONG

  An earlier version of this poem is on p.61; the girls’ names are different.

  A CRADLE SONG

  In part a reaction to Watts’s metrically similar ‘Cradle Hymn’, where the mother congratulates her infant on being materially better off than thé infant Jesus: ‘How much better thou’rt attended/Than the Son of God could be… Here’s no ox anear thy bed,’ etc. B.’s mother sings of spiritual rather than material grace, and perceives the closeness of infant and Creator rather than the distinction.

  THE DIVINE IMAGE

  17 all must love Both an imperative, ‘all should love’, and a declarative, ‘all do (logically, of necessity) love’.

  HOLY THURSDAY

  Title Charity children were brought to annual services at St Paul’s on the first Thursday in May. A first draft of this poem appears in An Island in the Moon, where the children wear ‘grey’ instead of ‘red’.

  9 mighty wind In Acts 2:1–4 the sound of a ‘rushing mighty wind’ comes from heaven, and the congregation, filled with the Holy Ghost, begins to speak in tongues.

  NIGHT

  31 each mild spirit The angels receive the spirits of predators as well as victims.

  42 From the vision of the peaceable kingdom in Isaiah 11:6.

  45 lifes river ‘And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,’ Revelation 22:1.

  INFANT JOY

  2–5 The repetition of ‘I am’ in connection with the query ‘What shall I call thee?’ suggests Moses’ first encounter with the God who identifies Himself as ‘I AM’. By implication the infant is divine and divinity is ‘joy’.

  A DREAM

  Watts’s song ‘The Ant, or Emmet’ is metrically similar.

  1 a shade Shadow or protection.

  ON ANOTHERS SORROW

  22 Wiping all our tears away ‘and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes’, Revelation 7:17, 21:14.

  SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

  INTRODUCTION

  Interpretation of this poem depends upon whether the call of stanzas 2–4 is that of the Bard, or that of the Holy Word. It also depends upon whether the Holy Word and this call are to be conceived as generous and merciful or tyrannical and punitive. Unlike the tender God of Innocence, the God of Experience is the repressive father-figure of institutional religion.

  4–7 Adam and Eve, having sinned, ‘heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and… hid themselves… amongst the trees of the garden,’ Genesis 3:8.

  8 That may refer to ‘voice’, ‘Holy Word’ or ‘lapsed soul’.

  8–9 controll Restrain, curb (OED
4.b).

  The starry pole The north pole, or region of the pole star. In B. this image is associated with war and monarchy.

  11 From Jeremiah 22:29: ‘O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.’ Milton, in The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, complaining that England was choosing ‘a Captain back for Egypt’, declares, ‘Thus much I should perhaps have said, though I were sure I should have spoken only to Trees and Stones; and had none to cry to, but with the Prophet, “O Earth, Earth, Earth!” to tell the very Soil itself, what her perverse inhabitants are deaf to.’

  18 starry floor An image of Reason. Stars in B. are associated with the rational God who created a Newtonian cosmos. As in ancient metaphysics, the stars are symbols or agents of Necessity, which rules the world of Nature.

  19 watry shore An image of Materialism, elsewhere in B. called the dead ‘sea of Time and Space’.

  EARTH’S ANSWER

  The Notebook draft for this poem is on p. 142 below.

  7 Starry fealousy The Jealous God, who created the stars in conformity with Reason and Law, demands obedience from the soul, and keeps Earth imprisoned. Elsewhere in Blake this God is called URIZEN.

  13–15 Can a creative or procreative impulse fulfil itself when repressed?

  21 this heavy chain Reason; repressive Moral Law; the flesh itself.

  23 vain (1) Self-admiring; (2) futile.

  HOLY THURSDAY

  A ‘contrary’ poem to that of Innocence. The Notebook draft is on p. 155 below.

  4 usurous hand (1) Economically, the supposed benefactors of the charity children are rich citizens of London; (2) spiritually, the citizens expect a return of gratitude on their investment of charity.

  THE LITTLE GIRL LOST

  In this and the following poem, Lyca (like the heroine of The Book of Thel) may be understood as the soul entering mortal life, or the Innocent entering Experience – specifically sexual experience. Though the new state seems a decline (a sleep), she does not fear it, and is protected. Details derive from neo-Platonic interpretations of the myth of Persephone, as well as the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Snow White’ of fairy tales.

  3–4 (1) Sleep is the ‘sentence’ passed on earth (and all mankind). It is both serious (‘grave’) and profound (‘deep’). (2) It is a sentence of death. (3) ‘Grave’ also means ‘engrave’.

  7–8 the desart… a garden In Isaiah 35:1 ‘the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose’. In the myth of Persephone, the earth grows barren when the virgin-goddess is captured by the King of Hades, but resumes its fertility at her annual return each spring.

  13 Seven Summers old The design, however, shows an adolescent maiden embracing a youth.

  THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND

  2 Lyca’s parents In the myth, the earth-goddess Ceres seeks her abducted daughter through the world, and finally bargains for her annual return. B., however, gives two parents and has them remain with the child.

  36 According to some classical sources, Pluto (god of the underworld) and Zeus (god of heaven) are one. Here, ‘beast’ and ‘spirit’ are one.

  THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER

  The ‘contrary’ poem to that of Innocence. Notebook draft, p. 151.

  NUKSES SONG

  The ‘contrary’ poem to that of Innocence. Notebook draft, p. 144.

  THE SICK ROSE

  Notebook draft, p. 149.

  THE FLY

  Notebook draft, p. 156.

  5–6 From Gray’s ‘Ode on the Spring’: ‘Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly.’

  THE ANGEL

  Notebook draft, p. 155. An allegory on Chastity.

  THE TYGER

  See MHH 8.7, p. 184 below: ‘The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword. are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.’ ‘Contrary’ poem to ‘The Lamb’, Innocence. Notebook draft, p. 145.

  2 forests of the night The dark woods of Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Comus represent Nature. Both contain beasts which symbolize the dangerous passions. B.’s tyger is (1) God’s wrath, as the Lamb is His Love; (2) a ruthless natural predator; (3) man’s own ‘burning’ passion shut in his natural body. The questioner – throughout the poem – cannot understand how such things come to be.

  4 frame (1) Construct, fabricate; (2) place within a restrictive border.

  6 fire of thine eyes (1) Fiery eyes; (2) fire itself, before it was seized and used for eyes.

  17–18 the stars… their spears… their tears The fading of the first stars, falling of the first dew? In FZ v.64.26–8 the god of Reason, URIZEN, describes the Fall: ‘I called the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark/The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away/We fell.’ Here, too, the suggestion is that Reason, having created a ‘frame’ for primordial Energy, is still inadequate to deal with it.

  MY PRETTY ROSE TREE

  Notebook draft, p. 134.

  AH! SUN–FLOWER

  In Ovid’s Metamorphoses the nymph Clytie pines away for love of the scornful sun-god Hyperion, and is transformed to a flower whose face follows the path of the sun all day.

  THE LILLY

  Notebook draft, p. 144.

  THE GARDEN OF LOVE

  Notebook draft, p. 135.

  THE LITTLE VAGABOND

  Notebook draft, p. 153.

  LONDON

  Watts’s ‘Praise for Mercies’ begins, ‘Whene’er I take my walks abroad,/How many poor I see.’ Watts’s comfortable child–speaker, noting the starvation, ragged clothing, ill-housing and criminal tendencies of others, promises to love the God who has created these pleasant inequities.

  1 charter’d The charters of London were ancient guarantees of the city’s liberties. B.’s use is ironic.

  10 appalls (1) Horrifies, frightens; (2) casts a pall over.

  15–16 The harlot to whom a young man resorts may infect both him and his family. But all are victimized by the deadening institution of the ‘Marriage hearse’, which prohibits free love.

  THE HUMAN ABSTRACT

  ‘Contrary’ poem to ‘The Divine Image’, Innocence. Notebook draft, p. 147.

  5 mutual fear brings peace A summary description of the Social Contract.

  14 Mystery B.’s first mention of the TREE OF MYSTERY.

  INFANT SORROW

  ‘Contrary’ poem to ‘Infant Joy’, Innocence. Notebook draft, p. 139.

  A POISON TREE

  Notebook draft, p. 138.

  A LITTLE BOY LOST

  ‘Contrary’ poem to ‘The Little Boy lost’ and ‘Found’, Innocence. Notebook draft, p. 150. Watts’s ‘Obedience to Parents’ reads: ‘Have ye not heard what dreadful plagues/Are threatened by the Lord,/To him that breaks his father’s law/Or mocks his mother’s word?… The ravens shall pick out his eyes,/And eagles eat the same.’

  A LITTLE GIRL LOST

  ‘Contrary’ poem to ‘The Little Girl Lost’, originally in Innocence.

  TO TIRZAH

  This poem is only in later copies of SIE and cannot be earlier than mid-1803 in its style of lettering. Tirzah, an important figure in Milton and Jerusalem, is the individual’s mortal mother, or Mother Nature herself. The design shows a dead body being anointed by an old man, on whose robes appear the words, ‘It is raised a spiritual body’, from Paul’s discussion of the resurrection of the body (I Corinthians 15:44).

  16 what have I to do with thee? Jesus says to Mary (John 2:4) ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’

  Notebook Poems and Fragments, c. 1789–93

  B.’s much-used Notebook (also known as the Rossetti MS., since it was owned for a time by D. G. Rossetti) was apparently inherited from his brother Robert, who died in 1787. From c. 1789 until as late as 1818, he made this notebook a major repository for drawings and sketches, drafts and fair copies of poems, miscellaneous squibs, and prose writings.

  The group of poems here consists of drafts for most of the lyrics in Songs of Experience, plus
other lyrics written at the same period and on similar themes; two political pieces datable to 1792–3 (all this work is clustered at the back of the Notebook, which was reversed to make a new beginning); and an epigram on marriage inscribed near the front of the volume, but not dated.

  ‘A FLOWER WAS OFFERD TO ME…’

  Becomes ‘My Pretty Rose Tree’, SE, p. 126.

  ‘LOVE SEEKETH NOT ITSELF TO PLEASE…’

  Becomes ‘The Clod & the Pebble’, SE, p. 118.

  ‘I WENT TO THE GARDEN OF LOVE…’

  Becomes ‘The Garden of Love’, SE, p. 127.

  ‘I HEARD AN ANGEL SINGING…’

  An attempted ‘contrary’ to ‘The Divine Image’, SI, p. 111.

  11–14 Slightly revised, these lines become the opening of ‘The human image’ (Notebook, p. 147), finally entitled ‘The Human Abstract’ in SE, p. 128.

  A CRADLE SONG

  An attempted ‘contrary’ to ‘A Cradle Song’, SI, p. 110, but not finally used in SE.

  CHRISTIAN FORBEARANCE

  Becomes ‘A Poison Tree’, SE, p. 129.

  INFANT SORROW

  B. kept only the first two stanzas for the poem of this name in SE, p. 129. It is a ‘contrary’ to ‘Infant Joy’, SI, p. 115.

  36–7 This couplet also concludes ‘In a mirtle shade’ (Notebook, p. 142) and ‘The Angel’ (Notebook, p. 155; SE, p. 124).

  ‘SILENT SILENT NIGHT’

  Possibly intended as a ‘contrary’ to ‘Night’, SI, p. 112.

  ‘O LAPWING…’

  The lapwing is a kind of plover, noted for a slow, irregular flapping flight and a shrill wailing cry. Probably a sexual double entendre; see ‘Thou hast a lap full of seed’.

  ‘THOU HAST A LAP FULL OF SEED…’

  The term is used bawdily in Hamlet 111.ii.121: ‘Shall I lie in your lap? – No, my lord. – I mean, my head upon your lap?’

  EARTHS ANSWER

  Used, with the deleted stanza at the centre retained, in SE, p. 118.

  IN A MIRTLE SHADE

  Keys in after stanza 6 of ‘Infant Sorrow’, p. 140.

  LONDON

  The final form of this poem is in SE. p. 128.