August 3, 2021

From Gerald R. Lucas
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Songs of Innocence and of Experience copy AA object 29 Title Page for Songs of Experience.jpg
Introduction[1]
By: William Blake (1794)

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; 5

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew,
That might controll,[2]
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew! 10

O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass. 15

Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor
The watry shore
Is giv’n thee till the break of day. 20

Notes & Commentary

  1. The introductory poem from the Songs of Experience, 1794, which defines the “emotional conditions” of the poems in this book Tomlinson 1987, p. 27).
         Compare this poem to its contrary, the “Introduction” from Songs of Innocence. See also the introductory note on “The Lamb” for more background into Blake’s poetic composition and philosophy.
  2. I.e., the Soul might control.

Work Cited

  • Battenhouse, Henry M. (1958). English Romantic Writers. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.
  • Gardner, Stanley (1969). Blake. Literary Critiques. New York: Arco.
  • Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. (2018). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Major Authors. 2 (Tenth ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 9780393603095.
  • Tomlinson, Alan (1987). Song of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake. MacMillan Master Guides. London: MacMillan Education.

Links