THE ADOLECENT

            Fitzwilliam Museum

           Songs of Experience

              Garden of Love

Plate 44, Copy AA

Since adolescence is a period of transition between childhood and adulthood it requires many adjustments and adaptations. Few of us do not experience some trauma as we seek to cast aside values and behaviors which were suitable to the child but would be inappropriate to the mature person. We find our lives disrupted when we lose one set of standards before we find another which is reliable and trustworthy.  

We have been taught to live in certain ways by parents, teachers, and other authorities but must decide on the way that is harmonious with our inmost being if we are to live honestly and with authenticity. Here are some common experiences of adolescence which can be discerned in poems of Blake's Songs of Experience.

1 disillusion

2 realizing the end of childhood

3 facing harsh reality

4 alienation

5 confronting restraints 

6 readjusting value structure 

7 suffering consequences of non-conformity 

8 breaking sexual mores 

9 rejecting societies norms 

Disillusion 

Songs of Experience, Plate 32, (E 20)

"The CLOD & the PEBBLE         

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

     So sang a little Clod of Clay,  
     Trodden with the cattles feet:
     But a Pebble of the brook,
     Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite." 

Realizing the end of childhood 

Songs of Experience, Plate 38, (E 23)

"NURSES Song                          

When the voices of children, are heard on the green
And whisprings are in the dale:
The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, 
My face turns green and pale.

Then come home my children, the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Your spring & your day, are wasted in play
And your winter and night in disguise.

Facing harsh reality 

Songs of Experience, Plate 40, (E 23)
"THE FLY.                            

Little Fly
Thy summers play,              
My thoughtless hand            
Has brush'd away.               
 
Am not I 
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing: 
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life                    
And strength & breath:
And the want                        
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die." 

Alienation  

Songs of Experience, Plate 44, (E 26) 

"The GARDEN of LOVE           
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen: 
A Chapel was built in the midst,  
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,  
And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,            
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be: 
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires."

Confronting restraints 

Songs of Experience, Plate 46, (E 26) 
"LONDON         

I wander thro' each charter'd street,               
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 
And mark in every face I meet         
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man, 
In every Infants cry of fear,         
In every voice: in every ban,   
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear 

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,     
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse"

Readjusting value structure 

Songs of Experience, Plate 47, (E 27)
"The Human Abstract.                 
 
Pity would be no more,        
If we did not make somebody Poor:  
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;

And mutual fear brings peace;
Till the selfish loves increase.
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.         

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears:
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Catterpiller and Fly,
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat; 
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro' Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain"

Suffering consequences of non-conformity 

Songs of Experience, Plate 50, (E 28) 
"A Little BOY Lost                

Nought loves another as itself
Nor venerates another so.
Nor is it possible to Thought
A greater than itself to know:

And Father, how can I love you,      
Or any of my brothers more?          
I love you like the little bird     
That picks up crumbs around the door.

The Priest sat by and heard the child.
In trembling zeal he siez'd his hair: 
He led him by his little coat:            
And all admir'd the Priestly care.    

And standing on the altar high,   
Lo what a fiend is here! said he:
One who sets reason up for judge 
Of our most holy Mystery.

The weeping child could not be heard.
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They strip'd him to his little shirt.    
And bound him in an iron chain.          
And burn'd him in a holy place,          
Where many had been burn'd before:
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such things done on Albions shore."    

Breaking sexual mores 

Songs of Experience, Plate 51, (E 29) 
"A Little GIRL Lost

 Children of the future Age,
Reading this indignant page;
Know that in a former time.
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime. 

In the Age of Gold,
Free from winters cold:
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.

Once a youthful pair
Fill'd with softest care:
Met in garden bright,
Where the holy light,
Had just removd the curtains of the night.

There in rising day,
On the grass they play:
Parents were afar:
Strangers came not near:
And the maiden soon forgot her fear.

Tired with kisses sweet
They agree to meet,
When the silent sleep
Waves o'er heavens deep;
And the weary tired wanderers weep.

To her father white 
Came the maiden bright:
But his loving look,
Like the holy book,
All her tender limbs with terror shook.

Ona! pale and weak!
To thy father speak:
O the trembling fear!
O the dismal care!
That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair" 

Rejecting societies norms 

Songs of Experience, Plate 55, (E 32) 
"A DIVINE IMAGE

[An early Song of Experience included in one late copy]  

Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror, the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress

The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge."  

Fitzwilliam Museum

Songs of Experience

Nurses Song

Plate 38, copy AA

Fitzwilliam Museum

Songs of Experience

Human Abstract

Plate 47, copy AA