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William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience | Tate

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Watch, listen and read Games, quizzes and films for kids Take a closer look at several of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience in their original illustrated form William Blake Songs of Innocence title page 1789 Copy F, plate 2 © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection William Blake Songs of Experience title page 1794 Copy F, plate 33 © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection The Songs of Innocence were published by Blake in 1789, and he produced a combined version of Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794. The Songs are now often studied for their literary merit alone, but they were originally produced as illuminated books, engraved, hand-printed, and coloured by Blake himself. The text of the poem and the accompanying illustration formed an integrated whole, each adding meaning to the other. Read highlights from the Songs of Innocence and of Experience in the

When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry ’ ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!’ So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved, so I said, ‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’ And so he was quiet, & that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black; And by came an…

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