‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger,’ by William Blake

Both of these poems appear in Songs of Innocence and Experience. “The Lamb” also appears in the earlier-published Songs of Innocence.

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

Note the repetition and the connection to the same Lamb (i.e., Jesus) in Pearl. But contrast the lilting sweetness of this poem to the aggressive language in “The Tyger”:

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The tiger functions as something monstrous, something awful (in every sense of the word). It is worth noting that Blake was influential infuential in scholarship on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a poem “Of Man’s first disobedience” (I.1), especially in advancing the idea that Satan is the poem’s hero.

As it was with “London,” it’s worth viewing different versions of these poems at the Blake Archive. Reading Blake in something that approximates an “original” can profoundly influence the way we interpret them. Pay special attention to the sometimes-subtle differences in color, texture, etc., in each version.

For background information on Blake, see the following entries in the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism, a useful resource for just about any literary topic:1