Analysis of William Blake's- Little Boy & little girl, clod and the pebble, London

                                   William Blake

"The Little Boy Lost" and "The Little Boy Found"

Summary

A little boy cannot keep up with his father, so he cries out for the older man to slow down or speak to him so he can find his way. No one answers and the darkness rolls in, so the boy begins to weep.

In the companion poem, God hears the little boy’s weeping and appears to him in the image of his father dressed in white. He leads the boy home to his mother, whom the boy greets with weeping.

Analysis

Both “The Little Boy Lost” and “The Little Boy Found” are two-stanza poems composed of two quatrains. The first poem has an erratic rhyme scheme, ABCD ABCB (although it is possible line 2's “fast” is a slant rhyme with line 4's “lost,” making the first stanza ABCB). By contrast, the second poem is clearly ABCB in both stanzas. The first poem's near rhyme adds to the tone of discomfort and fear the boy feels toward his too-quick father. The second poem's rhyme is more easily identified, making it seem more organized and “right” to the reader's senses.

The little boy of these two poems represents the human soul or spirit, seeking God the Father in a sin-wracked world that seeks to obliterate the signs of His presence. In the first of the two poems, the boy calls out to his earthly father, but is left behind to fend for himself. Blake suggests that earthly religious practices, philosophies, or institutions cannot lead the soul to absolute truth and peace. In following the “father” of the world, the boy only becomes more lost.

It is only through the intervention of God Himself in the second poem that the child returns to a state of safety, possibly intended to suggest the salvation of the regenerate soul, in the arms of a maternal figure. The nurturing mother is able to give comfort where the earthly father and or the society created by such men only offer abandonment and hopelessness. That it is the female figure who actually comforts the boy is telling. Blake may be suggesting a stronger healing power within “mother earth” than within the “father church” of his day. He may also be seeking to balance the male and female aspects of creation: the male, in this case God the Father, leads the soul to its destination, while the female passively awaits the soul to offer it bliss. Nonetheless, the mother figure is more positively represented in these two poems.

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"The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found"

Summary

These two poems parallel the similarly titled “Little Boy Lost” and “Little Boy Found” of Songs of Innocence. In fact, these two poems were originally written for Songs of Innocence, but were moved to Songs of Experience due to their eschatological themes. In the first stanza, Blake returns to his prophetic voice from the first two poems, envisioning a future in which the Earth has been unbound from the chains of Reason and seeks her creator. In that day, the wild desert in which the little girl will wander later in the poem becomes “a garden mild.” The seven-year-old girl, Lyca, represents the human soul, lost and wandering “in desert wild” as she searches for meaning or solace. Unlike the “Little Boy” poems, Lyca’s parents seek after her with desperate hearts. In her wandering, Lyca cannot rest as long as her mother weeps for her. Eventually her mother stops weeping long enough for the girl to go to sleep, and it is here that she finds the beginning of her own paradise. The wild animals, most notably a lion and lioness, surround Lyca’s sleeping form but cannot or will not harm her because she is a virgin. The lion, an echo of the protective king of beasts from “Night” in Songs of Innocence, weeps “ruby tears” while the lioness disrobes Lyca, symbolically removing her soul from her material body in death. The lions then take Lyca to their cave to sleep.

The second poem follows the parents in their search for Lyca. They grow increasingly desperate, a state that is only increased when they dream of her starving in the desert. They encounter the lion, who at first knocks them to the ground then stalks around them. Smelling their scent, or more likely the scent of their daughter Lyca, the lion licks their hands and speaks to them, telling them to cease weeping and follow him to his “palace” wherein their daughter rests “among tiger-tiger first line of the poem is very powerful, with the use of the first syllable emphasis (trochee) and the second word being repeated. On a literal level this is obviously talking about a Tiger and with the use of exclamation marks to give the impression of a statement or a warning, something to be feared and that is dangerous, it could also be someone addressing the Tiger itself, calling or maybe shouting for its attention. The next few words of the first line 'Burning' and 'bright' makes you thing on a literal level of perhaps the colour of the Tiger orange .On a slightly more philosophical level the word burning could be associated with a fire which, used in this context is relating the ambivalence between the Tiger and the fire, on one side fire when controlled is an essential asset and vital in life. But on the other, when uncontrolled can be wild, unpredictable, and dangerous and in some cases can destroy life. This is much the same as a Tiger, which is beautiful, yet can deadly. The use of the two 'b's' 'Burning' and 'Bright' as alliteration is also used to emphasize that of the power and fear of the Tiger. In the forests of the night, In contrast to the first line the second line is filled with darkness and on a literal level can be associated with the night, being dark and tin the deep of a jungle or forest there wouldn't be much light and it would seem very dark. Yet, Blake uses the darkness to represent more on a philosophical level. The night, the night is often associated with danger and mysterious and terrible things happening. For example, witches and ghosts only come out at night. But also, the forest as well as being physically very dark is also a very morally dark place. Where terrible immoral things take place. An example of this is the fairytale story Hansel and Gretel who go into the forest and are captured by a witch, in other words, child abduction. What immoral hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? These next two lines are one of the most crucial in the whole poem, firstly on a literal level, a question directed to the tiger itself asking 'who has made you?' .On a slightly more philosophical level 'what immortal' or really 'what God or Gods' and the use of 'hand' and 'eye' words associated with making and creating something, meaning in this context 'What God or Gods have created you' But the real question comes in the next line. The use of the word 'frame' making you think of something controlled or contained and also connected with symmetry, with perfection. Something symmetrical is associated with something well made .So through this line Blake is trying put across the idea that because the tiger is so well made it must have been created by someone or something very important like a God or Gods. 2nd Stanza: In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? In the first line of the second stanza Blake uses the words 'deeps' and 'skies' this on a literal level makes you thing of the deeps as the ocean and Skies as, the sky. On a philosophical level this is a very elemental line with the uses of water and air (deeps being associated with oceans and skies) also the distant meaning that these are two extremes and comparisons. The next line reintroduces the relevance of 'fire' by using the word 'burning' also adding another element to the stanza. On a literal level the words 'burning' and 'eyes' you could associated with cats eyes which do appear to glow.

"The Clod and the Pebble"

The difference in perspective aligns with the “experiences” of the two inanimate speakers. The clod has been “Trodden with the cattle’s feet,” so that it is malleable, but also easily shaped to the will of others. The pebble has been hardened by its time in the brook and therefore offers resistance to any who would seek to use it for their own ends. By contrast, the clod is somewhat mobile, whereas the pebble must remain at rest in its place on the bottom of the brook.

Nonetheless, the poem does not allow the reader to side completely with the Clod and its view of love. Both clod and pebble experience loss; the Pebble rejoices in the loss of others, while the Clod rejoices in its own loss of ease. Even the Clod's Heaven is built on the despair of Hell, thus "taking" from another in order to increase. In the "Experienced" mind, exploitation of others is a requirement for progress of any sort.

Structurally, the poem appears at first to be two balanced syllogisms of the respective viewpoints. The word “but” in line 6 is the turning point from the Clod's argument to that of the Pebble. The former argument is one of Innocence, while the second shifts to Experience. That Blake chooses to end the debate with the Pebble's argument lends to this poem an interpretation that favors the Pebble's hardened point of view regarding love. However, the balancing lines "And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair" (line 4) and "And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite" (line 12) force the reader to see the two views as balanced and to reach his own conclusions based on personal experience.

"London"

Summary

Blake’s London is a dismal place, populated by crying infants, poor chimneysweepers, violent soldiers, and brazen prostitutes. Here the prophetic voice of the Bard returns to decry the existence of such a place. Everywhere he sees “Marks of weakness, marks of woe.” Like and Amos or Jonah of old, the Bard calls London to repent of its wickedness, its oppression of the poor, and its cultivation of vice, or be destroyed.

Analysis

"London" follows an ABAB rhyme scheme throughout its three stanzas with little deviation from iambic tetrameter. Only "Mind-forg'd manacles" and "How" and "Blasts" in lines 14-15 are irregularly stressed. "Mind-forg'd" is stressed to further its contrast from the preceding three lines, each of which begins "In every" to create a litany of cries throughout London. Lines 14 and 15 give irregular stress to the two words in order to further disturb the reader, leading up to the oxymoron of the "marriage hearse" in line 16.

The poet expresses his disdain for the urban sprawl of post-Industrial Revolution London in terms as harsh as his praise for nature and innocence are pleasant. A society of people so tightly packed into artificial structures breeds evil upon evil, culminating with the “Harlot’s curse” that harms both the young and the married. It is as if a system has been created specifically to destroy all that is good in humankind, a theme Blake takes up in his later works. The reader is warned off visiting or dwelling in London, and by implication urged to seek refuge from the world’s ills in a more rural setting.

Blake's critique is not aimed only at society or the system of the world, however. Only the third stanza directly addresses one group's oppression of another. Instead, much of the poem decries man's self-oppression. One reading of the poem suggests that the Harlot of the last stanza is in fact Nature herself, proclaimed a Harlot by a narrow-minded, patriarchal religious system. In this interpretation, Nature turns the marriage coach into a hearse for all marriage everywhere, because marriage is a limiting human institution that leads to the death of love rather than its fulfillment in natural impulses.