William Blake Nurses Songs

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William Blake Nurse's Songs

T. S. Eliot once said of Blake’s writings, “The Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience”… are the poems of man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them.” (Grant 507) In these books of poetry and art, written and drawn by William Blake himself, are depictions of the poor, the colored, the underdog and the child’s innocence and the man’s experience. The focus of my paper will be on Blake’s use of simple language, metaphors and drawings to show the two different states of the human spirit: innocence and experience. I hope to show this through two poems: the “Nurse’s Song” of innocents and the “NURSES Song” of experience.
In the first poem, the poem representing innocence, the nurse is in the background image as a pretty, young woman, sitting and reading by a tree. Her mood is peaceful and at rest “When the voices of children are heard on the green / And laughing is heard on the hill.” (Blake 23) The drawing and the poem also convey a sense of peace and trust. The children are naïve and vulnerable to the pain, the sorrow, and the evils of the perverted world; yet their faith in the fact that they are protected by the nurse, like a lamb by his shepherd, is clear from their play. The nurse herself trusts that the children are safe from perversions because of their voices and laughter. The picture shows this trust of the children through their carefree play, holding hands and dancing in a ring.
In the next stanza, the nurse seems to step into her knowledge of experience:
Then come home my children, the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come Come Leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies. (ll. 5-8)
She asks them to come in, so as to protect them from the dangers, or maybe just from exposure, to the night and its dampness. Her concern for what the darkness brings can only mean she has experienced the night before. The very minute this stanza begins, a weeping willow tree appears on the right side of the lines. It does not go away until the drama is over and the children get to stay out and continue their play.
Just as quickly as the nurse expresses her concern, the children in their innocence express their desire to play more. The children, with their wise innocence, proclaim it is still light out; and not only do they know it, but the sheep still grazing and the birds still flying know it too. With this, the nurse gives in to them, and the children a...

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