Songs of Experience
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Songs of Experience is a 1794 poetry collection forming the second part of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience with opposing perspectives of the world. The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the volume's sense of despair. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems. Blake printed and published Songs of Innocence alone, but Songs of Experience was always printed and published as a companion to Songs of Innocence, indicating that Blake did not intend the work to stand alone.
Songs of Experience contains the following poems; each poem is accompanied by an illuminated plate.
- Introduction
- Earth's Answer
- The Clod and the Pebble
- Holy Thursday
- The Little Girl Lost
- The Little Girl Found
- The Chimney-Sweeper
- Nurse's Song
- The Sick Rose
- The Fly
- The Angel
- The Tyger
- My Pretty Rose Tree
- Ah, Sunflower
- The Lily
- The Garden of Love
- The Little Vagabond
- London
- The Human Abstract
- Infant Sorrow
- A Poison Tree
- A Little Boy Lost
- A Little Girl Lost
- A Divine Image
- A Cradle Song
- The Schoolboy
- To Terzah
- The Voice of the Ancient Bard
