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William Blake | Article View | |
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Early Poetry |
Blake began writing poetry at the age of 12, and his first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of youthful verse. Amid its traditional, derivative elements are hints of his later innovative style and themes. As with all his poetry, this volume reached few contemporary readers.
In 1789, unable to find a publisher for his Songs of Innocence, Blake and his wife engraved and printed the work at home. This was the first large work created in his novel method of “illuminated printing,” which combined text and decorations on a single etched plate. Blake’s most popular poems have always been Songs of Innocence, and the volume displays characteristics that become more marked in Blake’s later work. It is written in a lyric style of great freshness, simplicity, and directness. Here are the first verses of the “Nurse’s Song” from Songs of Innocence:
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.
In 1794, disillusioned by the apparent impossibility of human perfection, Blake issued Songs of Experience, employing the same lyric style, and often using the same titles and themes as in Songs of Innocence, but perverting the sing-song rhythms so that the verses seem sinister and resonant with a darker meaning. Here is the “Nurse’s Song” from Songs of Experience:
When the voices of children are heard on the green
And whisp’rings 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 the night arise;
Your spring & your day are wasted in play,
And your winter and night in disguise.
Both series of poems take on deeper resonances when read in conjunction. Innocence and Experience, “the two contrary states of the human soul,” are contrasted in such companion pieces as “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” Blake’s subsequent poetry develops the implication that true innocence is impossible without experience, transformed by the creative force of the human imagination.
