William Blake
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TYGER, TYGER
Contents
Preface to Milton
‘I saw a chapel all of gold’
‘ “I die I die” the Mother said’
Songs of Innocence
Introduction
The Shepherd
The Ecchoing Green
The Lamb
The Little Black Boy
The Blossom
The Chimney Sweeper
The Little Boy lost
The Little Boy found
Laughing Song
A Cradle Song
The Divine Image
Holy Thursday
Night
Spring
Nurse’s Song
Infant Joy
A Dream
On Another’s Sorrow
The Little Girl Lost
The Little Girl Found
The School Boy
The Voice of the Ancient Bard
Songs of Experience
Introduction
Earth’s Answer
The Clod & the Pebble
Holy Thursday
The Chimney Sweeper
Nurse’s Song
The Sick Rose
The Fly
The Angel
The Tyger
My Pretty Rose Tree
Ah! Sun Flower
The Lilly
The Garden of Love
The Little Vagabond
London
The Human Abstract
Infant Sorrow
A Poison Tree
A Little Boy Lost
A Little Girl Lost
To Tirzah
A Divine Image
The Mental Traveller
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WILLIAM BLAKE
Born 1757, London
Died 1827, London
BLAKE IN PENGUIN CLASSICS
The Complete Poems
Selected Poems
Milton
a Poem in 2 Books
To Justify the Ways of God to Men
([London:] The Author & Printer W Blake 1804)
Preface
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green;
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds, unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of Fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.
‘Would to God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets.’
Numbers XI Ch 29 v.
‘I Saw a Chapel All of Gold’
I saw a chapel all of gold
That none did dare to enter in
And many weeping stood without
Weeping, mourning, worshipping.
I saw a serpent rise between
The white pillars of the door
And he forcd & forcd & forcd
Down the golden hinges tore
And along the pavement sweet
Set with pearls & rubies bright
All his slimy length he drew
Till upon the altar white
Vomiting his poisons out
On the bread & on the wine.
So I turnd into a sty
And laid me down among the swine.
‘ “I Die I Die” the Mother Said’
‘I die I die’ the Mother said,
‘My Children will die for lack of bread!
What more has the merciless tyrant said?’
The Monk sat down on her stony bed.
His Eye was dry, no tear could flow.
A hollow groan first spoke his woe.
He trembled & shudderd upon the bed.
At length with a feeble cry he said
‘When God commanded this hand to write
In the studious hours of deep midnight
He told me that All I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on Earth I love.
‘My brother starvd between two walls,
His children’s cry my soul appalls.
I mockd at the wrack & griding chain,
My bent body mocks at their torturing pain.
‘Thy father drew his sword in the north,
With his thousands strong he is marched forth.
Thy brother has armed himself in steel
To revenge the wrongs thy Children feel.
‘But vain the sword & vain the bow,
They never can work war’s overthrow!
The Hermit’s prayer & the widow’s tear
Alone can free the world from fear.’
The hand of vengeance sought the bed
To which the purple tyrant fled.
The iron hand crushd the tyrant’s head
And became a tyrant in his stead.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul
Songs of Innocence
([London:] The Author & Printer W Blake 1789)
INTRODUCTION
Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
‘Pipe a song about a Lamb:’
So I piped with merry chear.
‘Piper pipe that song again;’
So I piped, he wept to hear.
‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy chear.’
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
‘Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read.’
So he vanish’d from my sight
And I pluck’d a hollow reed
And I made a rural pen,
And I stain’d the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
THE SHEPHERD
How sweet is the Shepherd’s sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.
For he hears the lamb’s innocent call,
And he hears the ewe’s tender reply.
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.
THE ECCHOING GREEN
The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells’ chearful sound,
While our sports shall be seen
On the Ecchoing Green.
Old John with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say:
‘Such such were the joys
When we all girls & boys,
In our youth-time were seen
On the Ecchoing Green.’
Till the little ones weary
No more can be merry;
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end:
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest:
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.
THE LAMB
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed
By the stream & 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 & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee.
Little Lamb, God bless thee.
THE LITTLE BLACK BOY
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 noon day.
‘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:
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our father’s knee
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair
And be like him and he will then love me.
THE BLOSSOM
Merry Merry Sparrow
Under leaves so green
A happy Blossom
Sees you swift as arrow
Seek your cradle narrow
Near my Bosom.
Pretty Pretty Robin
Under leaves so green
A happy Blossom
Hears you sobbing sobbing
Pretty Pretty Robin
Near my Bosom.
THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER
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 & in soot I sleep.
There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl’d like a lamb’s back was shav’d, 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, & that very night,
As Tom was asleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black,
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & 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 & 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 & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm.
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
THE LITTLE BOY LOST
‘Father, father, where are you going?
O do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost.’
The night was dark, no father was there;
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep, & the child did weep
And away the vapour flew.
THE LITTLE BOY FOUND
The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wand’ring light,
Began to cry, but God ever nigh,
Appeard like his father in white.
He kissed the child & by the hand led
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale thro’ the lonely dale
Her little boy weeping sought.
LAUGHING SONG
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it,
When the meadows laugh with lively green
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing ‘Ha, Ha, He,’
When the painted birds laugh in the shade
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live & be merry and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of ‘Ha, Ha, He.’
A CRADLE SONG
Sweet dreams form a shade
O’er my lovely infant’s head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams.
Sweet sleep with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o’er my happy child.
Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight
Sweet smiles, Mother’s smiles
All the livelong night beguiles.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes.
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.
Sleep, sleep, happy child.
All creation slept and smil’d.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o’er thee thy mother weep.
Sweet babe, in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy maker lay and wept for me,
Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee,
Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small.
Infant smiles are his own smiles;
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles.
THE DIVINE IMAGE
To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
All pray in their distress:
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
Is God our father dear:
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
Is Man his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face:
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
HOLY THURSDAY
Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green;
Grey headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow
Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow.
O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town!
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.
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
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.
NIGHT
The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine.
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine,
The moon like a flower
In heaven’s high bower;
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.
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