Holy Thursday by William Blake Explication

“Holy Thursday” has two different parts written at different times. They both come from the “Songs of Innocence” work by William Blake. The first one discusses a religious celebration called Holy Thursday in which all the participating schools would celebrate the accusation of Jesus forty days after Easter. The speaker is a third person observer who doesn’t really exist. A group of children walk to church to sing in celebration.
Almost the entire poem is in a very cheery and bright tone. It describes the children as innocent and it compares them to the waters of Thames and to flowers of London. The reader sees the children as perfect, innocent beings. The children begin to sing in the church raising their hands toward the heavens. The author is vivid at this point in the poem; two similes are used describing the children singing, comparing their singing to a mighty wind raising the song to heaven, and harmonious thunderings among the heavens. The last line of the poem offers advice to the reader. It says that if you drive an angel from your door, you should cherish the pity that will befall you. This seems to put the entire poem into a new light, as if the purpose of it was to preach religion, not celebrate it. Although I would not go so far as to say the poem is a religious propaganda based on the subtle suggestion in the last line.
The poem has a simple story and a simple meaning. Like most religious poems, this poem describes a perfect person in the eyes of the particular religion, and shows it in all its innocence, then subtly hints at the imperfection of all other things. This poem is not quite as straight foreword in expressing the imperfection of the reader as opposed to the perfection of the children, which I liked very much. Most religious poems seem so one sided and insulting. They seem to only serve a single purpose, to influence religious beliefs upon people using guilt or inflicting low self-esteem.
The second poem has a similar theme, innocence of children, but it has a much more somber tone. The first stanza asks the question is it a holy thing to see a child born and turned to sin and misery. To see a child cared for and fed by a cold unholy person. The second stanza explains the confusion of the child; it does not know the world that it has been born into. The stanza asks another question, does the child cry for joy, or not? It also explains that so many children are born into poverty. The third stanza goes on to talk about the life ahead of the child born. It explains that his life will be filled with misery and unholy things will block his path. The last stanza, however, changes the tone. It gives hope, explaining that where good things flourish, a child will never be in poverty.
Although I do not like religious poems much and I prefer to seclude myself from organized or publicized religion, I enjoyed the poems. I especially enjoyed the second part even though it had a melancholy theme; I liked the imagery and metaphors.

"Dark Satanic Mills"

"Dark Satanic Mills"

Holly thursday by William Blake critical overview

Compare and Contrast William Blake’s Holy Thursday (I) of Innocence with Holy Thursday (II) of Experience.

The two poems: Holy Thursday I, II reflect Blake’s theory of contrariness. The tile of the poems refers to the Thursday before Easter Sunday, observed by Christians in commemoration of Christ’s Last Supper in which the ceremony of the washing of the feet is performed: the celebrant washes the feet of 12 people to commemorate Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet. In England a custom survives of giving alms to the poor.

So the title has religious significance. Both the poems deal with the same theme; but their approach to the theme is different; the first being light and ironic and the second being more savage and direct. I first analyse Holy Thursday (I) and then Holy Thursday (II) and finally, I will compare and contrast both the poems.

“Till into the high dome of Paul’s they

like Thames‘ waters flow.”

The poem’s (Holy Thursday I) dramatic setting refers to a traditional Charity School service at St. Paul‘s Cathedral. The first stanza captures the movement of the children from the schools to the church, likening the lines of children to the Thames River, which flows through the heart of London: the children are carried along by the current of their innocent faith. In the second stanza, the metaphor for the children changes. First they become “flowers of London town.” This comparison emphasizes their beauty and fragility; it undercuts the assumption that these destitute children are the city’s refuse and burden, rendering them instead as London‘s fairest and finest. Thus Blake emphasizes their innocence and beauty in Holy Thursday I. Next the children are described as resembling lambs in their innocence and meekness, as well as in the sound of their little voices. The image transforms the character of humming “multitudes,” into something heavenly and sublime. The lamb metaphor links the children to Christ and reminds the reader of Jesus’s special tenderness and care for children. As the children begin to sing in the third stanza, they are no longer just weak and mild; the strength of their combined voices raised toward God evokes something more powerful and puts them in direct contact with heaven. The simile for their song is first given as “a mighty wind” and then as “harmonious thunderings.” The beadles, under whose authority the children live, are eclipsed in their aged pallor by the internal radiance of the children. Thus the ‘guardians’ are beneath the children. The final line advises compassion for the poor. Blake’s basic aim in this poem is to emphasize the heavenliness and innocent or the children. The beginning of  Holy Thursday (I) is transformed into Holy Thursday II as:

“Is that trembling cry a song?   

Can it be a song of joy?

Holy Thursday II in contrast begins with a series of questions: how holy is the sight of children living in misery in a prosperous country? Might the children’s “cry,” as they sit assembled in St. Paul‘s Cathedral on Holy Thursday, really be a song? “Can it be a song of joy?” In the first stanza, we learn that whatever care these children receive is minimal and grudgingly bestowed. The “cold and usurous hand” that feeds them is motivated more by self-interest than by love and pity. Moreover, this “hand” metonymically represents not just the daily guardians of the orphans, but the city of London as a whole: the entire city has a civic responsibility to these most helpless members of their society, yet it delegates or denies this obligation. Here the children must participate in a public display of joy that poorly reflects their actual circumstances, but serves rather to reinforce the self-righteous complacency of those who are supposed to care for them. The song that had sounded so majestic in the Songs of Innocence shrivels, here, to a “trembling cry.” In the first poem, the parade of children found natural symbolization in London‘s mighty river. Here, however, the children and the natural world conceptually connect via a strikingly different set of images: the failing crops and sunless fields symbolize the wasting of a nation’s resources and the public’s neglect of the future. The thorns, which line their paths, link their suffering to that of Christ. They live in an ‘eternal winter’, where they experience neither physical comfort nor the warmth of love.

Holy Thursday I is meek and lenient in tone; but the poem calls upon the reader to be more critical than the speaker is: we are asked to contemplate the true meaning of Christian pity, and to contrast the institutionalized charity of the schools with the love of which God–and innocent children–are capable. Moreover, the visual picture given in the first two stanzas contains a number of unsettling aspects: the mention of the children’s clean faces suggests that they have been tidied up for this public occasion; that their usual state is quite different. The public display of love and charity conceals the cruelty to which impoverished children were often subjected. Moreover, the orderliness of the children’s march and the ominous “wands” (or rods) of the beadles suggest rigidity, regimentation, and violent authority rather than charity and love. Lastly, the tempestuousness of the children’s song, as the poem transitions from visual to aural imagery, carries a suggestion of divine vengeance as in these lines:

“Then cherish pity, lest you drive
an angel from your door.”

In the Innocence version, Blake described the public appearance of charity school children in St. Paul‘s Cathedral In “experienced” version, however, he critiques rather than praises the charity of the institutions responsible for hapless children. The speaker entertains questions about the children as victims of cruelty and injustice, some of which the earlier poem implied. The rhetorical technique of the poem is to pose a number of suspicious questions that receive indirect, yet quite censoriously toned answers as in:

“Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land”

The question may be asked which of the two “Holy Thursday” poems states the right attitude. According to John Beer, a famous critic the innocent poem displays greater insight, in spite of the greater worldly wisdom, and in spite of the superior moral interest, shown in the experienced poem. The innocent speaker, says this critic, sees more of the scene than the experienced one. The speaker in the experienced poem is so anxious to assert his moral ideas that the scene in St. Paul‘s becomes an excuse for a moral sermon rather than a situation he can give attention to. And John Beer concludes: “The innocent song ends on a positive note without preaching a sermon, while the experienced speaker preaches a sermon that is negative in tone, being full of moral anxiety but destructive of moral obligation.” With his “Holy Thursday” of Experience”, Blake clarifies his view of the hypocrisy of formalized religion and its claimed acts of charity. He exposes the established church’s self-congratulatory hymns as a sham that the sound of the children is only a trembling cry.

Auguries of Innocence by William Blake critical overview

In this poem Blake narrates multiple scenes that seem to have no connection between each other.The poem conveys several different things about the natural world where we live in. The poem is written with such great conciseness and precision, making it impossible not to empathize with all the protagonists and their inner struggle. In the first stanza, Blake says " To see a world in a grain of sand,  and a heaven in a wild flower" Blake is telling us two things. First, if we consider the world like a grain of sand, it tells us that the world is not as big as we think it is. All around the world, people tend to have the same problems and the same unresolved issues in their life. From my point of view, Blake is reminding us that at the end of the day we are not so different. The second verse on the other hand, contains a contradiction. How could there be heaven in a wild flower? Blake is telling us that things are usually not perfect in our natural world, and also that everyone does not have the same opinion about things.  Afterwards, Blake makes several animal images. In reality he is impersonating people through animals. The Robin redbreast symbolises a prisoner who is locked up. The dove house could be an image  of a country where there is a conflict, since "Shudders hell thro’ all its regions". The dog that is starving, could be an image of a beggar slowly becoming weaker, since no one is taking care of him anymore. The horse on the other hand, shows human cruelty. The horse could be a human slave, that " calls  to heaven for human blood". There are many other animal images, and they are all used to convey the same message: the downfall of the world, and all the suffering that comes into play. Blake was very religious, he wrote this poem to show how the natural world has changed overtime and how innocence has been lost in all living beings, and how we will all be 'judged" at the end of our life. The reason why this poem is so long, and is full of turn of events is because Blake tries to mimic living being's life. Full of challenges, ups and downs and difficulties. On line 53, Blake says that " A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent" . Blake means that human beings tend to be selfish and insecure. If someone tells you something not because they want you to fix it, but just to point it out and feel better about themselves is worse then just telling a lie.

In my opinion, the most interesting part of the poem are the last verses. They are powerful and intense, and conclude the poem in a harsh yet strong way that leaves the reader lost in wonder. " We are led to believe a lie when we see not thro' the eye, which was born in a night to perish in a nigh," I personally think that this is the most beautiful verse of the poem.  When I first read it, I immediately though of dictators or even just a president. "We are led to believe a lie" meaning that if someone imposes, their way of thinking, and this person is in power, people will tend to think like him. The best example would be Hitler in World War two, when Germany lost World War one, the entire country was devastated. People did not believe in anything anymore, so when Hitler came to power imposing his racist ideology, Germany's population blindly followed him, "Led to believe a lie, when we see not thro' the eye". "Which was born in a night to perish in a night" is fascinating too, because it illustrates  how weak the ideologies really are. When Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy, everyone including my grandmother believed in him and thought of him as the "Savior of Italy".  When the fascism collapsed, almost everyone turned against him. His body, after being kicked and shot, was hung upside down in a gas station, and the body was then stoned by civilians.This example is to demonstrate, how an ideology that was acclaimed and applauded one day, could "perish in a night". The last verse " God appears and God is light (...) to those who dwell in realms of day" is used to illustrate the final judgment. Suffering throughout your existence is worth it, because you will be saved. "But does a human form display" illustrates the idea that God is always with us no matter what. He is always around, and his presence is in all of us.

And did those feet in ancient time by William Blake critical overview

The poem by William Blake that is generally known as “Jerusalem” is probably the best known of his works, although it was not given that title by its author. Blake did write a poem called “Jerusalem”, but it is one of his immensely long “Prophetic Books”, written between 1804 and 1820, that is little read today.
What we know as “Jerusalem” forms part of the preface (otherwise in prose) to another of his Prophetic Books, namely “Milton”, that dates from 1804-08. The sixteen lines that concern us have no title, but, as they concern the building of a “new Jerusalem”, the name has stuck in the public imagination and everyone understands “Blake’s Jerusalem” to mean this poem.
The fame of the poem was assured in 1916 when set to music by Sir Hubert Parry. It became a patriotic hymn during World War I and the anthem of the Women’s Institute. It has also been suggested as a suitable candidate for an English National Anthem for use at sporting and other occasions. The sixteen lines, originally written as four four-line stanzas, divide into two distinct parts. The first eight lines comprise four questions, each beginning “And”. The first of these pairs is:
“And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God / On England’s pleasant pastures seen?”
This refers to the ancient legend that, as a boy, Jesus of Nazareth was taken by his great-uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, on one of the latter’s trading visits to England. Although there is absolutely no evidence for this claim, it is just about possible that a metals trader from ancient Palestine, which Joseph could have been, made visits to Cornwall, which was a vital source of tin and other metals that were traded with various parts of the Roman Empire. Why would he not have taken his young great-nephew on such a trip? One can imagine young Jesus begging his parents to let him go and their eventual giving in to his entreaties.
So, if the boy Jesus did visit England, in Blake’s eyes that made England a special place by having been blessed by the “Countenance Divine”. It also made England a prime candidate for the building of “New Jerusalem”.
The fourth couplet of the poem reads:
“And was Jerusalem builded here / Among these dark Satanic mills?”
This refers not only to Jesus bringing “Jerusalem”
with him, but to three words that have given rise to much speculation as to their meaning. It has long been thought that the dark Satanic mills must be the wool and cotton mills of the Industrial Revolution that was getting into full swing during Blake’s lifetime.
One consequence was that thousands of people migrated from the countryside to take jobs in the new factories. They worked long hours in dangerous environments for the lowest wages that the factory owners could get away with, living in cramped, hastily-built housing that was blighted by the smoke and pollution of the nearby factories. “Satanic” was a fitting description for the social distress caused by the changes, and of which anti-establishment poets such as Blake were well aware.
However, other explanations have been put forward. One is that the reference is to the “Albion Flour Mill”, that was close to where Blake had once lived. Another is that the mills are the grindstones of the Universities, or the Church, both of which were targets for Blake’s anger. Another thought is that Blake, who was living in Sussex at the time he wrote the poem, was referring to the many windmills that had been erected in the area to increase the flour supply during Napoleon’s blockade of Britain. Why Satanic? Because Blake had just read “Don Quixote”, in which the hero does battle with enemy knights who turn out to be windmills.
Whatever the explanation, Blake clearly has a negative attitude to the mills, and sees Jerusalem as a force of good that can defeat their evil.
The second pair of stanzas takes a very different turn. The questioning ends and, in its place, the poet becomes a man of action, determined to take up arms in the “mental fight” to build Jerusalem “in England’s green and pleasant land”. Reminiscence on past legend gives way to present resolve and future intention.
The third stanza comprises four commands to some person or persons unknown:
“Bring me my Bow of burning gold / Bring me my Arrows of desire
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! / Bring me my Chariot of Fire.”
This is very powerful imagery that cannot be taken literally. It would, for example, be difficult to wield a bow and arrows and a spear at the same time! We find in the next stanza that Blake also intends to arm himself with a sword, so he will certainly have his hands full if attempting to control a fiery chariot along with everything else!

"And did those feet in ancient time" is a short poem by William Blake from the preface to his epic Milton a Poem, one of a collection of writings known as the Prophetic Books. The date on the title page of 1804 for Milton is probably when the plates were begun, but the poem was printed c. 1808.[1] Today it is best known as the anthem "Jerusalem", with music written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916.

The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant, travelled to the area that is now England and visited Glastonbury during Jesus' lost years.[2] The legend is linked to an idea in the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing a Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a new Jerusalem. The Christian Church in general, and the English Church in particular, used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.[3]

In the most common interpretation of the poem, Blake implies that a visit of Jesus would briefly create heaven in England, in contrast to the "dark Satanic Mills" of the Industrial Revolution. Analysts note that Blake asks four questions rather than asserting the historical truth of Christ's visit. According to this view, the poem says that there may, or may not, have been a divine visit, when there was briefly heaven in England.[4][5]