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British Literature of the Romantic Period

29 May 2015

Children of Innocence and of Experience

in Blake’s Holy Thursday and The Chimney-sweeper

“And said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and
whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me: for he that is least among you all, the
same shall be great.”
(King James Version. Luke 9:48)

Not popular during his lifetime, nowadays William Blake is one of the most famous Romantic

poets. He had the courage to oppose the authorities and was not afraid to show the true face

of the late 18th century society in Britain. The “Two Contrary States of the Human Soul”–

good and evil – are described in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Songs of

Innocence was published first in 1789 and five years later Songs of Experience made an

appearance. In many of his poems, Blake opposes the innocent, sinless image of the child to

the image of the corrupted, immoral image of the adult (“Introduction”). One of the major

themes in Romanticism was children and childhood. During this period children were

perceived as “truly uncorrupted and as closer to nature” (Bygrave 25). Childhood was

associated with innocence and being pure, but it also meant unawareness and lack of

knowledge. Experience, on the other hand, stood for knowledge and awareness. Blake also

addressed some social and political issues through his literary works, for example, “The

Chimney-Sweeper” deals with child labor and “Holy Thursday” describes the grim lives of

charity children (“Introduction”).

Holy Thursday from the Songs of Innocence is formed by three stanzas, each containing two

rhymed couplets. The poem begins outside St Paul’s Cathedral, where a “service for the poor
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children of the London charity schools” (“Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday”) will be held

on the day of Ascension of Jesus Christ. A colourful image is created by the use of positive

colours when the children are described – The children walking two and two, in red, and blue,

and green:. On the other hand, the Grey-headed beadles – who are representatives of the

Church authority, are described by the grey colour, which is rather neutral and emotionless.

Thus, from the very beginning of the poem we are aware of the contrast between the children

and the adults. The use of simile in line 3 – as white as snow – alludes to Isaiah 1:18 from

The Bible, in which the Lord promises to erase the sins of those who are repentant; white

again suggests the notion of innocence and purity. Blake, like most of the Romanticists,

praised and loved nature. He also used many references to nature to describe settings and

characters, and in the last line of the first stanza the procession is compared to the flow of the

river Thames. – Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like / Thames waters flow. The lines of

the poem are longer in length, compared to Blake’s other poems, which may symbolize the

long trains of children processing to the Cathedral. (Ussery). The first stanza of the

companion poem from Songs of Experience opens with momentous rhetorical question – Is

this a holy thing to see / In a rich and fruitful land,— / Babes reduced to misery, /Fed with

cold and usurous hand? – which clearly shows that the lyrical speaker condemns the

authoritative figures, responsible for the poor children. Not holiness, but dishonesty is

apparent during the service. In a rich and fruitful land small children are left without any help

and no one takes care of them. Blake calls for society’s attention on that problem; for him, as

a superpower in the 18th century, England must find a solution for this issue and must protect

the most vulnerable members of its society. The second stanza of the poem from Songs of

Innocence begins with an exclamation – O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of

London town! . Using the metaphor these flowers of London town! Blake evokes the sense of

the vitality and at the same time of the vulnerability of the children. Although multitude(s) is
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repeated three times and it notes how many thousands of children live in poverty in London,

the emphasis in this poem is on the radiance which they bring to the church (“Songs of

Innocence: Holy Thursday”). Blake also calls them multitudes of lambs , again referring to the

biblical allusion of Jesus Christ, who is perceived as the Lamb, and also to the idea of that

they are pure and guiltless. In contrast, the corresponding poem from Songs of Experience,

has shorter lines and the question form prevails in the second stanza - Is that trembling cry a

song? / Can it be a song of joy?. This poem, unlike the first one, is more direct and criticizes

severely those who doom children to an early death, exploitation and poverty. The trembling

cry and the inability to call it a song suggests that children are rather weeping or incapable of

sing out loud, rather than singing a song.

And so many children poor? / It is a land of poverty! – the following statement contradicts

the second line of the poem, claiming that a land so wealthy and prosperous like England, it

is, in fact, a place where huge number of children live impoverished and neglected (“Songs of

Innocence: Holy Thursday”). In the last stanza of the Innocence poem, Blake depicts a

powerful image of the children’s song, again using nature to emphasize the similarity between

them. The song is compared to mighty wind and harmonious thunderings, showing that when

the children are all gathered together they form a strong multitude and are closer to God than

the adults. Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor. – Chidren are not in

power, but because of their innocence and purity, they stand above the sinful adults. The

beadles, under whose authority the children live, are eclipsed in their aged pallor by the

internal radiance of the children. In this heavenly moment the guardians, who are authority

figures only in an earthly sense, sit “beneath” the children (“Songs of Innocence and

Experience”). As the children ascent to heaven, like Jesus Christ, and are compared to angels,

it is no surprise that the last line of the poem – Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from

your door. – advices that we should be careful not to drive away the divine from us. It also
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alludes to the Matthew 19:14 from The Bible. This verse exemplifies how we should treat

children, because it reveals Jesus’ tenderness and care for them. The last two stanzas of Holy

Thursday from Songs of Experience And their sun does never shine also employ simile to

nature but in a negative way – And their fields are bleak and bare, /And their ways are filled

with thorns,/ It is eternal winter there.

This creates a feeling of misery, of a place which brings sorrow. The use of the word eternal

stresses on the fact that children are doomed to live in such conditions endlessly, but only on

the Earth. In the final stanza another world is portrayed, which gives reassurance to the reader

that there is a place where – Babe can never hunger there. According to some critics, Blake

uses imagery from the vision of the New Heaven and New Earth found in the New Testament

book of Revelation (Revelation 7:16–17; Revelation 21:1–4.). The new creation is described

as a world without need of sun and where there are no more tears or sorrow, which could be a

consolation to those who are nowadays experiencing poverty and sorrow (“Holy Thursday 2”)

Blake’s The Chimney-Sweeper poems depict social injustice and the life of poor children, who

are forced to work from a very young age. The poem from Songs of Innocence consists of six

quatrains with a simple rhyme scheme – AABBCC. The narrator is a young boy whose father

sold him when he was very little – And my father sold me while yet my tongue / Could

scarcely cry ‘Weep! weep! weep! Weep / So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.–

which was a common practice during that time. The use of alliteration in ‘weep! – sweep,

comes to show that children are obliged to work even before they could start speaking

properly. It may also suggest a feeling of sorrow and oppression and a cry for help. Allusion

to The Bible is apparent in line six, where Tom is compared to a sheep, again suggesting the

idea of Jesus Christ and that the children are innocent like Him. The narrator tries to soothe

and reassure little Tom Dacre , who seems less experienced as a sweep, that when you head's

bare / You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair. There is a clearly visible contrast
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between Tom’s white hair and the soot, which has black colour. Black, often associated with

death, points out the negative consequences of child labour at that time and an attempt to

change the way the exploitive society perceived it. Then Tom has a strange dream That

thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack, /Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black.

The names of the boys are short in length and quite common, suggesting that they belong to

the low working class and Thousands of sweepers were destined to an awful lot. The

metaphor all of them lock'd up in coffins of black shows that children are “imprisoned by their

work”. The narrator then emphasizes their release by an angel who had a bright key. (Gillet).

The contrast between the earthly and the heavenly is indicated by the opposition bright key –

coffins of black. Angel sets them all free and releases them from their terrible fate. Another

suggestion of their purity is the use naked and white,when they rise upon clouds, where, only

in their dreams, they can feel free and play peacefully. The ultimate stanza of the poem is both

grim and optimistic – And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark, /And got with our bags and

our brushes to work. /Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm: – they awake

and are back into the harsh reality and have to continue working. Juxtaposing cold and warm

in the penultimate line, Blake points out that although they lead a miserable life on earth, the

children are hopeful, because they expect eternal happiness and joy when they go to Heaven.

The last line of the poem is always perceived with an ambiguity – So, if all do their duty, they

need not fear harm. According to some, Blake implies irony and denounces the corrupted

society and the organized religion (“Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Summary and

Analysis of "The Chimney Sweeper" (Songs of Innocence)” ).

In contrast with the first one, the Experience poem comprises of three stanzas, with varied

rhyme scheme. Being part of the second collection of stories, The Chimney-Sweeper presents

to the reader a child who is more aware of the world of the adults, and, as a consequence,

more sorrowful.The first stanza rhymes AABB characteristic of innocence and childhood, but
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after looking into the experience of the Chimney Sweeper, it switches to CDCD EFEF for the

last two couplets (Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Summary and Analysis of "The

Chimney Sweeper" (Songs of Experience)” ). The author also contradicts black (little black

thing) and white ( the snow) colours, establishing the idea that the work as a sweep has

blemished the innocence of the child. Repetition of the pun ‘weep! weep is present again, this

time the Crying! in notes of woe! suggesting the idea of crying out of despair and sadness, to

a greater extent, compared to the uncertainty of the first poem. The use of past simple in line

five – ‘Because I was happy upon the heath – comes to show that the little boy has been

robbed of childhood and his happy days were over when his parents sold him for a sweep. By

employing the metaphors clothes of death and notes of woe, Blake points out that the child

was doomed to live in misery, and probably die soon, by his own parents.(“Songs of

Experience: The Chimney-Sweeper” ). His parents are two-faced, because they mistreating

him so badly whilst still being able to view themselves, as church-goers, as being moral and

up-standing citizens. He suggests that it is because I am happy and dance and sing' that they

'think they have done me no injury (Gillet). Thus, the author is blaming the parents, and the

adults on the whole, but not the children. The two final lines of the poem reveal Blake’s

negative attitude towards the government (the King) and religious leaders (God’s Priest) in

similar fashion to his two Holy Thursday poems. “The use of the phrase make up a Heaven

carries the double meaning of creating a Heaven and lying about the existence of Heaven,

casting even more disparagement in the direction of the Priest and King”(Songs of Innocence

and Songs of Experience: Summary and Analysis of "The Chimney Sweeper" (Songs of

Experience)” ).

By writing two poems with the same title, Blake presents two different views on one and the

same problematic matter, thus emphasizing one more time on the dual nature of human

beings. (Freedman). There is innocence on the one hand, and experience, on the other.
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Both, in diametrical opposition, reveal author’s outlook on some social, political and spiritual

issues during the 18th century. Child labour and the irresponsible attitude of the society

towards children were some of the topics in his collection of poems, through which Blake

criticized severely and exposed those responsible for the impoverishment of the most

vulnerable members of society and the harsh reality that had to live in.

Works Cited
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"Introduction " . eNotes.com . Web. 27 May 2015 http://www.enotes.com/topics/songs-

innocence-experience/critical-essays#critical-essays-songs-innocence-and-experience-
william-blake-introduction

Bygrave,Stephen. Romantic Writings (Approaching Literature). London: Routledge, 1996.

Print

“Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday” .www.tate.org.uk . Web. 27May2015.

Ussery, Robert. “William Blake's 'Holy Thursday”. Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube , 18
November 2014. Web. 27 May 2015.

“Songs of Inonocence and Experience”. sparknotes.com. Web. 27 May 2015

“Holy Thursday 2”. romanticism.co.za. Web. 27 May 2015.

Gillet, Jeff. “The Chimney Sweeper (Innocence)”. blakesongsetting.co.uk. Web. 27 May

2015. http://www.blakesongsettings.co.uk/index.php/the-poems/116-the-chimney-sweeper-
innocence

“Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Summary and Analysis of "The Chimney Sweeper"
(Songs of Innocence) )” . gradesaver.com . Web. 27 May 2015.

“Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Summary and Analysis of "The Chimney Sweeper"
(Songs of Experience) )” . gradesaver.com .Web. 27 May 2015.

“Songs of Experience: The Chimney Sweeper" . www.tate.org.uk. Web. 27 May 2015.

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/william-blake/songs-innocence-and-
experience/songs-experience-chimney-sweeper

Gillet, Jeff. The Chimney- Sweeper: Experience. blakesongsetting.co.uk . Web. 27 May 2015

Freedman, Linda. “Blake's two chimney sweepers”. www.bl.uk . Web. 27 May 2015.
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Bibliography

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1934/1934-h/1934-h.htm#page10

http://biblehub.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZJKSqy9XX0 – poetryessay