The Schoolboy By William Blake Poem COmmentary

The Schoolboy By William Blake Poem COmmentary

  • Submitted By: brohanus
  • Date Submitted: 03/21/2014 7:15 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1954
  • Page: 8


Poem Commentary
The Schoolboy by William Blake
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!

But to go to school in a summer morn, -
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.

Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!

O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay, -

How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?


Poem Commentary
The Schoolboy is a poem which at first, William Blake, the author of the poem, put in his original version of Songs of Innocence but eventually moved it to the other half of his complete work, Songs of Innocence and Experience. His change of mind of the suitable position for The School Boy shows indecision by Blake regarding whether he should divide the works into two divergent sections or keep them together to resemble the crucial eminence of this particular poem. An elucidation of the poem is that Blake knew beforehand and was planning out the larger work when Songs of Innocence was first published, and that he intentionally decided to have dissimilar poems like The Schoolboy to institute at least some tension through the concurrence of them centered on other carefully planned out works. A rationale for concentrating on The Schoolboy is its subject matter. The poem is in relation to the results of...

Similar Essays