William blake "the tiger" (from “Songs of Experience)

Tiger ! Tiger! Burning bright What the hammer? What the chain?

In the forest of the night, In what furnace was thy brain?

What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

In what distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? And watered heaven with their tears,

On what wings dare he aspire? Did he smile his work to see?

What the hand dare seize the fire? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

And what shoulder, and what art. Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright

Could twist the sinews of the heart? In the forest of the night

And when thy heart began to beat, What immortal hand or eye,

What dread hand, and what dread feet? Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1. What basic metaphor is used to describe the Tiger? What human characteristics are we apt to symbolise with fire and heat?

2. What is the effect of having the poem be all questions, rather than a question and an answer as "The Lamb" was?

3. What questions does the tiger s existence raise about the creator? What does the change of words from "could" in the fourth line to "dare" in the last line imply about the nature of the creator? What metaphorical profession does Blake assign to God?

4. Read the lines where the repetition of the word "what" gives the sound of hammer blows.

5. Why does the author breaks the meter and rhyme in the first and the last stanzas?

6. Why is "He" in the poem "The Lamb" changed to "he" in "The Tiger"?

7. N ote, in this poem, the vivid phrasing, the use of the question and the intensity of the poet's feeling; also the fierce terror.

(From Songs of Innocence) The Chimney-Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,

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.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,

'Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.'

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! -

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:

And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

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:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

1. Who is speaking? Why did he become a chimney sweep?

2. Why did Tom Dacre cry?

3. How did narrator console Tom?

4. What was Tom's dream?

5. The sweeper is basically a slave, doing dirty and dangerous work. Does the sweeper see anything wrong with his situation?

6. From the point of view of 'experience' what is wrong with the sweeper's way of consoling Tom?

7. The last line of the poem is probably something the sweeper heard from some adult. What adult do you think would have said such a thing to these little children workers?

8. This poem has a satirical element. What or who is being satirised? Innocence, or those who exploit innocence? Do you think it is effective?