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William Blake's
Songs of Experience
Songs of Experience
is the second part of
Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary
States of the Human Soul
(first published in 1794), an expansion of Blake's first illuminated book
Songs of
Innocence
. The poems and artwork were reproduced by copperplate engraving and colored with washes by hand.
Blake republished
Songs of Innocence and Experience
several times, often changing the number and order of the
plates. The spellings, punctuation and capitalizations are those of the original Blake manuscripts.
William Blake:
Songs of Experience
2
Introduction
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.
Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll,
The starry pole;
And fallen fallen light renew!
O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.
Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away
The starry Boor
The watry shore
Is giv'n thee till the break of day
Earth's Answer
Earth rais'd up her head,
From the darkness dread & drear.
Her light fled:
Stony dread!
And her locks cover'd with grey despair.
Prison'd on watry shore
Starry Jealousy does keep my den
Cold and hoar
Weeping o'er
I hear the Father of the ancient men
Selfish father of men
Cruel jealous selfish fear
Can delight
Chain'd in night
The virgins of youth and morning bear.
Does spring hide its joy
When buds and blossoms grow!
Does the sower!
Sow by night?
Or the plowman in darkness plow!
Break this heavy chain,
That does freeze my bones around
Selfish! vain!
Eternal bane!
That free Love with bondage bound.
William Blake:
Songs of Experience
3
The Clod & the Pebble
Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.
So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattles feet:
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.
Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.
Holy Thursday
Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reducd to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song!
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor,
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns
It is eternal winter there.
For where-e'er the sun does shine,
And where-e'er the rain does fall:
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.
William Blake:
Songs of Experience
4
The Little Girl Lost
In futurity
I prophetic see,
That the earth from sleep,
(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise and seek
For her maker meek:
And the desart wild
Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime,
Where the summers prime,
Never fades away;
Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.
She had wanderd long.
Hearing wild birds song.
Sweet sleep come to me
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother weep.
Where can Lyca sleep.
Lost in desart wild
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep,
If her mother weep.
If her heart does ake,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.
Frowning frowning night,
O'er this desart bright,
Let thy moon arise,
While I close my eyes.
Sleeping Lyca lay;
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
View'd the maid asleep
The kingly lion stood
And the virgin view'd,
Then he gambold round
O'er the hallowd ground;
William Blake:
Songs of Experience
5
Leopards, tygers play,
Round her as she lay;
While the lion old,
Bow'd his mane of gold.
And her bosom lick,
And upon her neck,
From his eyes of Bame,
Ruby tears there came;
While the lioness,
Loos'd her slender dress.
And naked they convey'd
To caves the sleeping maid.
The Little Girl Found
All the night in woe,
Lyca's parents go:
Over vallies deep,
While the desarts weep.
Tired and woe-begone,
Hoarse with making moan:
Arm in arm seven days,
They trac'd the desart ways.
Seven nights they sleep,
Among shadows deep:
And dream they see their child
Starved in desart wild.
Pale thro' pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famish'd, weeping, weak
With hollow piteous shriek
Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman prest
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.
In his arms he bore,
Her arm'd with sorrow sore;
Till before their way,
A couching lion lay.
Turning back was vain,
Soon his heavy mane,
Bore them to the ground;
Then he stalk'd around,
Smelling to his prey.
But their fears allay,
When he licks their hands;
And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes
Fill'd with deep surprise
And wondering behold,
A spirit arm'd in gold.
On his head a crown
On his shoulders down,
Flow'd his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.
Follow me he said,
Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep.
Then they followed,
Where the vision led:
And saw their sleeping child
Among tygers wild.
To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell
Nor fear the wolvish howl,
Nor the lions growl.
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