Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Blake pairs his Songs of Innocence with the darker Songs of Experience to show ‘the two contrary states of the human soul’—childlike joy and wonder set against a world of cruelty, poverty, and repression. Deceptively simple lyrics like ‘The Lamb,’ ‘The Tyger,’ and ‘London’ carry profound spiritual and social meaning, and Blake originally engraved and hand-colored each page as a fusion of poetry and visionary art. Radiant, mysterious, and endlessly interpreted, these poems are among the most beloved in English and reveal one of literature’s most original imaginations. A cornerstone of Romantic poetry, they reward a lifetime of rereading.