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The Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake

In this lecture, I analyze six poems from William Blake's collection the Songs of Innocence and Experience. I focus on how innocence and experience are not external realities but internal states of the mind and soul. See below for the poems that I cover: The Clod and the Pebble—Blake “Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.” So sang a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle’s feet; But a Pebble of the brook, Warbled out these meter’s meet: “Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight; Joys in another’s loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.” Nurse’s Song (Innocence)—Blake When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still. “Then come home my children, the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away Till the morning appears in the skies.” “No, no, let us play, for it is yet day And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky, the little birds fly And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.” “Well, well, go & play till the light fades away And then go home to bed.” The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh’d And all the hills ecchoed. Nurse’s Song (Experience)—Blake When the voices of children are heard on the green And whisperings are in the dale, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children, the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise; Your spring & your day are wasted in play, And your winter and night in disguise. THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER (Innocence)—Blake When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’ So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said, ‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’ And so he was quiet, and that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!— That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black. And by came an angel, who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins, and set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run And wash in a river, and shine in the sun. Then naked and white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind: And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father, and never want joy. And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm: So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER (Experience)—Blake A little black thing among the snow, Crying! ‘weep! weep!’ in notes of woe! ‘Where are thy father and mother? Say!’— ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray. ‘Because I was happy upon the heath, And smiled among the winter’s snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. ‘And because I am happy and dance and sing, They think they have done me no injury, And are gone to praise God and His priest and king, Who made up a heaven of our misery.’ The Little Black Boy (from Innocence)--Blake My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav'd of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say. Look on the rising sun: there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away. And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in morning joy in the noonday. And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice. Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. Thus did my mother say and kissed me, And thus I say to little English boy. When I from black and he from white cloud free, And round the tent of God like lambs we joy: Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear, To lean in joy upon our fathers knee. And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him and he will then love me.