William Blake: The Visionary Mystic of the Romantic Age

William Blake was born in London in 1757 and died there in 1827. He was an engraver by trade, as well as a poet and painter, and he lived most of his life in London, mostly in poverty and little known. He claimed to see visions, and his poems and pictures were meant to be read together.

Songs of Innocence appeared in 1789, and he added Songs of Experience in 1794 as a second part that shows “the two contrary states of the human soul.” The poems are short and look simple, but the second set answers the first with doubt and anger. Readers who enjoy Robert Burns, Lord Byron or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe will find in Blake a poet of the same years who was closer to the street than to the court.

This collection contains 17 passages, copied exactly from the Project Gutenberg edition of Blake’s poems (ebook 574), which contains Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience and The Book of Thel. They are Blake’s own English, so no translator is involved. The edition prints the Songs in modern spelling and The Book of Thel with Blake’s older spellings, and it prints verse as a run of lines. The speaker of each poem is not always Blake, and the passages are not his plain opinions.

17 Passages from Blake’s Poems

Songs of Innocence: Joy, Pity and the Human Form

“Sweet Joy I call thee: Thou dost smile, I sing the while; Sweet joy befall thee!”

These lines come from “Infant Joy,” a poem in which a newborn child and an adult speak in turn. The baby says that its name is Joy, and the speaker answers with a blessing. The poem is almost nothing but names and greetings, which is why it is so simple. It shows Blake’s innocence at its purest, before any doubt has entered.

“Can a mother sit and hear An infant groan, an infant fear?”

In “On Another’s Sorrow,” the speaker asks whether anyone can see another’s grief without sharing it. The answer is always no. The poem then asks the same of God, who also cannot sit and watch a small bird or an infant suffer. The questions are plain, and the argument is that pity is natural to every feeling creature, human or divine.

“For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, Is God our Father dear; And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, Is man, his child and care.”

“The Divine Image” is one of the most important poems in the first set. It says that God is made of four virtues, and that man, God’s child, is made of the same four. The repetition is deliberate, and it gives the lines the feel of a prayer. The later Experience poem “The Human Abstract” turns these same virtues upside down.

“For Mercy has a human heart Pity, a human face; And Love, the human form divine; And Peace, the human dress.”

The next stanza of “The Divine Image” gives each virtue a part of the human body. Mercy has a heart, Pity a face, Love the whole form and Peace its clothing. Blake is saying that the divine is not far away but present in the shape of people. This idea of the human form divine returns again and again in his later writing.

“Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.”

This is the last line of the first “Holy Thursday,” which describes charity-school children walking in procession to St Paul’s. The poem admires the children’s song and ends on a warning to the guardians of the poor. In this version the tone is gentle. The matching poem in Experience asks sharp questions about the same scene.

“Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”

In “The Chimney-Sweeper,” the narrator, a boy sold into sweeping by his father, comforts little Tom Dacre when his curly hair is shaved. The line is kind and absurd, since a bare head cannot be spoiled by soot. Tom then dreams of an angel who sets the sweepers free. The poem lets the child’s innocence speak, and the reader supplies the anger.

Songs of Experience: The Tyger, London and Pity

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

This is the first stanza of “The Tyger,” the best-known poem in the second set. It is a series of questions that never receives an answer. It asks what kind of maker could shape such a creature, and the old spelling “Tyger” is Blake’s own. The poem is the counterpart of “The Lamb,” which asks who made the lamb.

“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?”

This is the heart of “The Tyger.” After asking about the forge and the anvil, the speaker asks whether the maker was pleased with the result. The second question links the tiger directly to the lamb of the first book. Blake does not say whether the answer is yes. The poem leaves the reader to think about a maker who made both gentleness and terror.

“In every cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear:”

The speaker of “London” walks through the streets and hears the sounds of misery everywhere. The phrase “mind-forged manacles” says that the chains are made by people’s own thinking and not only by their rulers. The edition prints a colon after the last line, so the passage ends with that mark in the middle of the poem’s sentence.

“Pity would be no more If we did not make somebody poor, And Mercy no more could be If all were as happy as we.”

“The Human Abstract” is the dark answer to “The Divine Image.” Here the same virtues, Pity and Mercy, depend on there being someone who is poor and unhappy. The argument is bitter and exact. Charity, it suggests, needs the misery it relieves, and the poem goes on to show how cruelty and deceit grow from such virtues.

“I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

The opening of “A Poison Tree” is one of the clearest short statements in the Songs. It sets two cases side by side. Anger that is spoken to a friend comes to an end, and anger that is hidden from a foe grows. The rest of the poem shows what that growth produces, in a way that the first four lines already predict.

“I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen; A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door; So I turned to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore.”

In “The Garden of Love” the speaker returns to a place where he used to play and finds a chapel with the commandment “Thou shalt not” written over its door. The poem is a protest against a religion that fences off joy.

“For where'er the sun does shine, And where'er the rain does fall, Babes should never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.”

These lines end the second poem called “Holy Thursday,” which belongs to Experience. It asks how a rich and fruitful land can have so many poor children, and it calls the place a land of poverty and eternal winter. The final stanza states the principle plainly: wherever the sun shines and the rain falls, no baby should go hungry.

Small Things and Great Questions

“If thought is life And strength and breath And the want Of thought is death; Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die.”

The speaker of “The Fly” has just brushed away a fly with a careless hand and now compares himself to it. He dances, drinks and sings until some blind hand brushes him away. The last stanza makes a cheerful sum of it. If thought is life, then the fly and the man are alike, and both are happy whether they live or die.

“How can a child, when fears annoy, But droop his tender wing, And forget his youthful spring?”

These lines come from “The Schoolboy,” in which a child tells how he dreads sitting indoors on a summer morning. He compares himself to a bird in a cage. The poem then turns to the parents and asks what becomes of the summer if the buds are nipped. It is a short protest against joyless teaching.

“Ah Sunflower, weary of time, Who countest the steps of the sun; Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller's journey is done;”

The poem “Ah Sunflower” addresses the flower as a traveller who follows the sun and longs for a place where the journey ends. The next lines speak of a youth and a pale virgin who rise from their graves to go where the flower wishes to go. The passage printed here is the first half of the poem, which ends with a semicolon.

“Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies, How great thy use, how great thy blessing, every thing that lives.”

In The Book of Thel a young shepherdess, Thel, asks the flower, the Cloud and the Worm why she should live if she must fade like them. These lines are the Cloud’s answer. Being food for worms is not a pointless end, since every living thing has a use. The edition prints this poem in Blake’s own spelling and with his punctuation.

Conclusion

These seventeen passages follow Blake from the small, bright Songs of Innocence to the sharper Songs of Experience and the strange short book of Thel. They return to the same few questions, which are what a person owes to the weak, how gentleness and terror can come from one maker, and how a society builds its own chains. Blake asks the questions plainly and leaves the answers to the reader.

The collection has limits. It uses one Gutenberg edition, which prints the Songs in modern spelling and The Book of Thel with Blake’s own, and which prints each poem as a run of lines. The poems have speakers, so the lines are not always Blake’s own opinions. The passages come only from these three works, and not from the longer prophetic books. Seventeen passages cannot show the pictures that Blake engraved with his words.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was William Blake?

William Blake (1757–1827) was an English poet, painter and engraver, born and mostly living in London. He engraved and printed his own books, with his own illustrations. He was little known in his lifetime, and he is now considered one of the greatest figures of English Romanticism.

Did Blake really write these words?

Yes. Blake wrote in English, so there is no translator. The lines are copied from the Project Gutenberg edition. That edition prints the Songs in modern spelling and The Book of Thel in Blake’s own, and it does not include his illustrations. Some poems are spoken by characters, such as a chimney sweep or a schoolboy.

What are Songs of Innocence and of Experience?

They are two sets of short poems that Blake combined in 1794. The first, from 1789, shows a world of childhood, joy and trust. The second shows the same world from the point of view of doubt, oppression and anger. Many poems in the second set answer a poem in the first.

Which text is quoted here?

All seventeen passages come from the Project Gutenberg edition of the poems of William Blake (ebook 574), which includes Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience and The Book of Thel. Each passage was checked against that text. The spelling and punctuation follow the edition.

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• Robert Burns: The Ploughman Poet and the Voice of Scotland
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• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The Universal Genius of Weimar

Which of Blake’s lines speaks to you most: the Tyger’s question, the mind-forged manacles or the baby who should never hunger? Share your view in the comments below!