From Songs of Experience (1794)
William
Blake
The Sick Rose
Oh rose, thou art sick;
The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
The Tiger
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame the fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart>?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
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?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Garden of Love
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,
And I saw it was filled with graves
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
London
I wander through each chartered street
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
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.
How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning church appals,
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.
But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.
A Poison Tree
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.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole—
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.