In this short essay I would like to show how I understand the poems of William Blake. I will write about the poems The Tyger, The Lamb, The Chimney Sweeper and London. I will go from one stanza to another trying to show what Blake wanted to say.
The poem The Tyger, as already the title shows, is about an animal called tyger. In the beginning Blake describes the animal’s fur: „Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright, In the forests of the night.“ In the second and third verse he is wondering who could create such a fearful animal. According to the next verses we can meet the tyger in the deeps of the forests or high in the mountains. Blake is talking about the power of the creator, who could create such strong animal. He is comparing the creation of the tyger to the work of a blacksmith with an anvil and furnace. Then Blake is showing the difference between a strong tyger and a week lamb and he is asking if the creator could make so big contrast in his creation. If it is one person who made both: „Did he who made the lamb make thee?“ At the end of the poem he repeats the first, the second and the third verse of the beginning. But he changes the fourth verse to express the respect to so strong and clever person, who created the tyger.
The Lamb is another Blake’s poem from the Songs of Innocence. Likewise as in The Tyger, Blake is again asking who is the creator of the lamb, if the lamb knows it. Then, in next six verses, he is describing the lamb. But not only to describe the lamb, but as an indirect describtion of the creator as well. Before the second stanza he repeats the question from the beginning. We could say that the second part of the poem is an answer to the question in the first part („Little Lamb who made thee? Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!“) Blake writes about the creator of the lamb. He is called by the same name as the lamb. We know that it’s Jesus Christ who called himself a Lamb. So Blake is telling us that God is the creator of the lamb. Then he describes Him. According to the poem He is meek and mild, became a child.. At the end is very nice verse with wish of blessing: „Little lamb, God bless thee!“
There are two poems named The Chimney Sweeper. Let us see the difference between them. The first of them starts sadly. It is about a boy whose mother died when he was very young. So he had to do the work of the chimney sweeper. There was a boy called Tom Dacre with nice cruled white hair. He was shaved and cried.