Blake Flashcards
I have no name
I am but 2 days old
My mother groan’d
my father wept; into the dangerous world I leapt
Helpless,
naked, piping loud
Struggling in my
fathers hands, striving in my swadling bands
A flower
was offer’d to me
But my Rose
turn’d away with jealousy and her thorns were my only delight
The sun does arise
and make happy the skies
Old John
with white hair, does laugh away care
Such, such were the joys
when we all girls and boys, in our youth-time were seen on the ecchoing green
Till the little ones
weary, no more can be merry
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 turn’d to the garden of love
that so many sweet flowers bore
tomb-stones
where the flowers should be
And priests
in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briars my joys & desires
Little lamb
who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?
He is meek
and he is mild
Tyger tyger
burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Burnt the fire
of thine eyes?
What the hammer?
What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain?
In every man of
every clime
Pity would be
no more, if we did not make somebody poor
He sits down with holy fears
and waters the ground with tears
And it bears
the fruit of Deceit
But their search was all in vain:
there grows one in the Human Brain
Their innocent
faces clean
The children walking
two & two in red & blue & green
Grey
headed beadles
They sit with
radiance all their own
Beneath them sit
the aged men, wise guardians of the poor
Is this a holy thing
to see, in a rich and fruitful land
Babes reduc’d to
misery, fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling
cry a song?
And their fields
are bleak & bare
Could scarcely cry
‘weep” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!
There’s little Tom
Dacre, who cried when his head that curl’d like lambs back was shav’d
Hush Tom, never mind it
for when your head’s bare, you know the soot cannot spoil your white hair
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack,
were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black
Then naked & white
all their bags left behind
So if all do their duty
they need not fear harm
A little black thing
among the snow
Where are your mother and father, say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray
They clothed me
in the clothes of death, and taught me to sing the notes of woe
And because I am
happy & dance & sing, they think they have done me no injury
And are gone to praise God
& his priest & King, who make up a heaven of our misery
the church is cold
but the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm
I wander thro’
each charter’d street
Marks of
weakness, marks of woe
In every cry
of every man, in every infant’s cry of fear
The mind-
forg’d manacles I hear
Every black’ning
Church appalls
And the hapless
soldier’s sigh
Look on the rising sun
there God does live
When the voices of children
are heard on the green and laughing is heard on the hill
The come home
my children, the sun is gone down
No, no, let us
play, for yet it is day
Besides, in the sky
the little birds fly
Well, well, go &
play till the light fades away
The days of my youth
rise fresh in my mind, and my face turns green and pale
Your spring & your day
are wasted in play
Nor a thorn
nor a threat stain her beauty bright
Love seeketh
not itself to please
The invisible worm
that flies in the night
Has found out thy bed
of crimson joy
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy
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
I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles
In the morning
glad I see my foe outstretch’d beneath the tree
