Nurse’s Song is found in both anthologies but are two very different poems. The first one in the Songs of Innocence is a short and simple poem about a group of children playing in the hills while the nurse watches them in contentment. As sunset approaches she tenderly asks them to ‘leave off play’ and go inside but they plead to play as long as the light lasts. The Nurse yields to their request and the children play with gladness. Blake portrays childhood in this poem by describing the children as part of nature and by giving them freedom. The sounds and play harmonises with the world of the sheep and birds: ‘…in the sky the little birds fly, and the hills are all covered with sheep.’ This also suggests to the reader that it is not twilight let as the shepherds have not come to collect their sheep and the birds have not returned to their next. The children have a lot of freedom. She asks them to come inside but they say: ‘No, no let us play, for it is yet day’. She agrees without any thought: ‘Well, well go and play till the light fades away.’ This shows that all she wants is for the children to be safe and happy. She is like an angel looking after the orphan children just wanting happiness from them. However it may be that she wishes for the children to have all the fun they can before entering adulthood were they will experience the hard life. This poem is similar to Holy Thursday and The Chimney Sweeper because all these poems have orphan children in them. It is similar to Holy Thursday because in both the children are doing things together and being looked after.
The second Nurse’s song is a shorter poem in which the Nurse hears ‘the voices of the children’ playing and remembers her childhood which fills her with fear and sickness. She immediately tells the children to come home because they are just wasting time and their life: ‘Your spring and your day are wasted in play’. In the poem the adult voice predominates warning the children of the dangers in life. Childhood is portrayed as frightening and useless. Blake shows this by the language used. The Nurse herself is afraid; saddened by memories of her own youth and disillusioned by the falsity of the adult world. This can be seen were it is written: ‘The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind / My face turns green and pale.’ The children do not respond, we can say they have lost the voice of innocence. The poem is such a contrast to the first one. The only similarities the titles and the first line: ‘When the voices of children are heard on the green’. However ‘green’ here refers to sickness. The children are ‘whispering’ and have no freedom as the Nurse refers to them as ‘my children’. Innocence thus becomes pointless: ‘Your spring and your day are wasted in play’. This poem is a little like Holy Thursday as in both the children are trapped and are being controlled by adults.
Holy Thursday is a poem about clean orphan children of London flowing like a river into St. Paul’s Cathedral. The children are being lead by ‘gray headed beadles’ and are brightly dressed. Once in the church they sit in vast multitude are ‘raising their hands’ in prayer. They sing like a ‘mighty wind’/ ‘harmonious thundering’ as their guardians, ‘the aged men’, watch over them. The poem urges the reader to remember that such urchins as these are actually angels of God. Childhood is portrayed to be good for the orphan children. Blake shows this by revealing that they are well looked after. We see their innocence when Blake writes that ‘their innocence faces’ are clean. ‘Clean’ not only refers to their innocence but also to their purity of sins. The fact that the are ‘walking two and two in red and blue and green,’ shows that they are well dressed and makes the reader feel that they are well treated by the ‘beadles’. However, it may be that the reason to this may be the special occasion and it is a one off. I think in this poem Blake is saying that childhood is tough and the children loss their talent and ability. This can be seen in the last line where it is written: ‘Then cherish pity, lest drive an angle form your door.’ This poem is similar to The Chimney Sweeper because in both poems the children are orphans but in Holy Thursday they have someone who looks after them.
Holy Thursday from the Songs of Experience is also about the church’s ceremony on Holy Thursday, but it is more depressing. The voice in the poem looks at all the poverty and misery around in the ‘rich and fruitful land’. The children may be signing their ‘song of joy’ happily but the internal suffering might not be seen. Childhood in this poem is portrayed as fearful and miserable. Blake portrays this by the language he uses. He uses rhetorical questions and imagery to portray this. This can be seen when Blake writes that the children’s lives are ‘filled with thorns’. Blake reveals the hardship of childhood through the description of destitution around us. We can see this where he writes: ‘Is this a holy thing to see, In a rich and fruitful land’. The protagonist asks this question in the opening line of the poem and seems amazed that poverty can be in a place like this. The line: ‘Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous’ shows the despair of the children. The poem makes the reader think that their lives are ‘bleak’, ‘bare’ and full of ‘misery’. The tone of the voice is a puzzled one as he uses so many rhetorical questions: ‘Is that trembling cry a song?’ This suggests to the reader that the children in the first Holy Thursday from songs of innocence where not as happy as they looked from the outside. The mood of the poem is a depressing and bleak. This poem is similar to The Chimney Sweeper as in both poems the children’s internal suffering is hidden.
The Songs of innocence Chimney Sweeper is about a chimney sweeper who was sold as a baby and worked a life of hardship and danger. He works with other chimney sweepers and comforts them when needed. A boy called ‘Tom Dacre’ had a sight of after life in paradise and with this on his mind he works well and happily the next day. Childhood in this poem is portrayed as ‘dark’, dangerous and filled with ‘fear’. Blake portrays all this through the use of imagery in the poem. In the first stanza where he writes that the children’s cries are ‘weep weep weep weep’ may be there attempt to say ‘sweep sweep sweep sweep’. This makes the reader fell guilty for not doing enough to help these poor kids. The fact that the voice is comforting a younger child shows that the children have a positive outlook on life: ‘You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair’. The fear in their lives is seen when Blake write: ‘…they need not fear harm’. This shows that they are afraid but they do not need to be. The darkness and dangers of their lives is seen in the line: ‘So your chimney I sweep and in soot I sleep’. However they still have hope which is of after life when an ‘angel’ will come and ‘set them all free’. The tone of the poem is very tragic and pessimistic but changes at halfway to a merrier one. Blake’s main message is that if children are good then there is nothing to be afraid of: ‘So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm’.
The Second Chimney Sweep is a much shorter poem which is aimed straight to the church. The poem is an answer to the question: ‘Where are thy father and mother?’ This question is asked to a chimney sweeper by a man and the answer in given in the rest of the poem. Childhood is portrayed as fearful and lonely. Blake shows this by giving the chimney sweeper an experienced voice. The child is abandoned by his parent and left to die: ‘They clothed me in the clothed of death’. This is referring to the ‘black’ soot he is covered in. At the end he says: ‘Who make up a heaven of our misery’. A normal child would not use such language but as he is experienced he understands. The sentence basically means that they think they are doing well but are not. The mood and tone of the poem is darker compared to the first Chimney sweeper. Blake is criticising the church for letting all this happen. The poem shows Blake’s anger towards the church and the society. The poem is similar to ‘The Little Vagabond’ as in both negative things are said about the church.
The difference between the portrayal of childhood in the two collections are that in Songs of Innocence childhood is easier, happier and more free, whereas, in Songs of experience childhood is lonely and filed with fear and anxiety. Blake thought children were the future and therefore should not be treated like dirt. I think this was the reason why Blake wrote his poems. To sum up Songs of innocence was how people thought that everything was all right but it was Songs of experience which opened every ones eyes.
