William Blake Poetry Themes

The use of children is a prominent theme in William Blake's poems. He sees the world through the eyes of a child and embraces the innocence of the young. He illustrates this style in poems such as "the lamb", "the little black boy", and "the chimney sweeper".

The lamb really illustrates the innocence and purity of a young child. The boy questions the lamb as to where it came from and he expects the lamb to answer back, but it is obvious to the reader that the lamb cannot talk. As the boy receives no answer, he decides to tell the lamb where he came from "Little lamb, I'll tell thee". This situation really shows the child's innocence. The lamb is later referred to as Jesus, as the Lamb of God. The child says that the lamb, the child and Jesus are all the same. "He became a little child. I, a child, and thou a lamb". What he does not understand, as he is an innocent child, is that the lamb will be sacrificed and that the child will die, just like Jesus did when he was sacrificed.

Another poem that illustrates the innocence of children is "The little black boy". The little boy has been told that being white is better than being black. Even though he is black on the outside, he believes he has the soul values as those of a white child. He thinks that white children are like angels and black ones are black because they are deprived of the light, as is shown in the line "And I' am black, but O! my soul is white; white as an angel is the English child, but I' am , as if bereav'd of light". The mother tries to console her son by telling him that he is going to face a difficult life but once he makes it though, god would take him to heaven "And we are put on earth a little space, that we learn to bear the beams of love; and these black bodies and this sunburnt face is but a cloud, and like a shavy grove". The boy envisions the day that he and the white boy will be brought to heaven. He believes that once he is in heaven he will no longer be been by the color of his skin. However, he thinks he won't be loved until he is like someone else. "I'll shade him from the heat, until he can bear to lean in joy upon our father's knee; and then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, and be like him, and he will them love me".

The other poem, which shows the innocence of the children, is "The chimney sweeper". The chimneysweeper had had experience in business for some time. He tries to advise another chimneysweeper called Dacre. The chimney sweeper tells Tom that his hair cannot be ruined if his hair it is shaved and that it is nothing to cry about because it is part of the job." There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd: so I said Hush, Tom! Never mind it, for when your head's bare you know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair". Tom dreams that "thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned and Jack, were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black". Here, the coffins are used to represent the chimneys that the little boy have to shimmy through. The angel that comes to save the boys is the angel of death. He sets them free because they are going to heaven." And by came an angel who had a bright key, and he open'd the coffins and set them all free". "And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, he'd had god for his father, and never want joy". This is important because the children's father sold them into the chimney sweeping business. So to Tom, having god as a father is something wonderful and to go to heaven is equally appalling to him. " So if all do their duty they need not fear harm". This line is very ironic because that is what the little boy thinks. The children do not know that they will die young of an unpleasant death because of this job. By this Blake illustrates how he sees the world through the eyes of a child.

There is a difference between the chimneysweeper from songs of experience and the chimneysweeper from songs of innocence. The first one, has a narrator in it questioning the young chimney sweeper "where are thy mother and father?". The young child tells him that his parents have gone to church to pray and blames them and society for his present position in life." Because I' am not happy and dance and sing, they think they have done me no injury and are gone to praise god and his priest and king, who make up a heaven of our misery". On the other hand, the young boy in the chimneysweeper from song of innocence realizes that he is going to die and that this is wrong. He blames god, his parents, and society for letting this happen to him. In this case Blake is still seeing the world through the eyes of a child, but in a more mature and experienced point of view.

To conclude, Blake's poems contain images of children and depict children as innocent and naïve. Blake definitely sees the world through the eyes of a child an this is shown throughout his poetry.