A Dream: This poem shows a child’s dream which is mainly about an ant, which has lost

his way. He is worrying and “pitying” as put in the text, when he is found. The ant meets
a glow-worm who shows him the way home. He is the light to the path and what i believe
to be Jesus. The ant also meets a beetle who is “set to light the ground” as he “goes his
round”. I believe this may be God himself or the word of God instead, who is preaching
out to people. I think this poem could be the story of how William Blake came to believe
in God or have faith. It’s about a child's innocence at a young age who is lost and
finding/learning about things. And of course it symbolizes many things such as how the
glow worm could be ------ showing the emmet its path on home. but it also connects with
the Childs.
The chimney sweeper: I believe that Tom Dacre is a symbol of purity and righteousness.
He is dehumanized by having his head shaved and being striped of his clothes, showing
the contrast between innocence and experience. He is naive and believes that by
following the instructions of the adults he will get into heaven. In stanza 6 he simply
awakes from a dream, content with the fact that there is hope. The poem can look like
Tom is experiencing visionary joy for spiritual comfort. This makes sense. But this is
actually social/political satire. Blake is teasing the church and government. So don\'t over
think it. William Blake is trying to say how the church is brain washing the children into
thinking that if they work hard, they will get into heaven. That way, they can get away
with child labor.
Tom is not DEAD; he just woke up from his dream like the poem said.
The message of the poem is how if everyone worked hard and finish their job, they will
eventually be rewarded and sent to heaven. This supports the \'songs of innocence\'
because it demonstrates the naivety of the kids. Interestingly,
the \"\'weep! \'weep! \'weep! \'weep!\" isn\'t referring to a child crying or innocence. Its
following the line \"My father sold me while yet my tongue could scarcely cry...\" and is
referring to the children\'s lisping effort to say \"sweep,\" as he walks the streets looking
for work. Selling children as indentured servants was common in Blake\'s day, usually for
7 years or until they were to big to climb the chimney\'s anymore, which they did naked.
It’s a clever attack at child lab our, and a shot at the church for supporting such child
labour. I think the poem talks about how children are innocent because of the actions of
adults. The more they are mistrated the more they are loving. Also When you are brought
down there is someone to bring you back up. Lastly it makes death seem peaceful. That
according to your actions it will lead you to joy or torture. this poem is not about child
labour. It is about the church brain washing the children. The fatehr he speaks of is the
church.The mother is mother nature that was destroyed because of the industrial
revolution.There are symbols such as naked and white which mean purity, the purity that
they had before the church was supporting child labours, it is shown by "if he'd be a go“
The Old Cumberland Beggar” offers a unique testament concerning the role of the
human imagination in public life. As the poem develops, a challenge to the idea of
meaningful artistic intervention increasingly advances the work's practical claims.
Though Wordsworth judged it overtly pressing enough to send (among the rest of the
1800 Lyrical Ballads) with a long letter to Charles James Fox, “The Old Cumberland
Beggar” was also genially criticized by Charles Lamb from what is seemingly an
opposite perspective, in which the poet's difficult subjectivity blocks any sense of
immediate social impact. Lamb evokes a nuanced crystallization of the poem where “the
mind knowingly passes a fiction upon herself,” both projecting upon the beggar and
detecting that substitution of self for another in turn. While, in Lamb's view, Wordsworth
still does not concede to “part with the wish” of a sympathetic connection and that
yearning's possible mystification into empathy. 2 In addition to pointing out the poem's
“too direct” quality as others have done, Lamb thus draws attention to Wordsworth's self-
awareness and the meaningful role of obfuscation in this poem, an important
compounding of traits whose results I hope to explore further here. The method of “The
Old Cumberland Beggar” progressively blurs the division between a political advocacy
that makes sense within conventional limits, and an imaginative sponsorship that feels
limitless and defies didactic (instrumental) meaning. Wordsworth gradually transports
readers from the relatively direct oratorical style of … good boy" referring to not
rebelling because the church supported the industrial revolution.
never seek to tell thy love:Actually i beilieve that William Blake was talking about lost
love due to death, personifying death as a traveller that tooke his love, and he has come to
the realization that love is not worth it hence the title \"Never Seek To Tell Thy Love\"
implying that if you eventually do your love will \"depart\" i.e. die. love is no less
unrequited once it's professed. Love that works should come more naturally, "as the
gentle wind does move", and should be formed between two people. I get the sense that
one-sided love that is "told" unfortunately never works out, as it's against the nature of
love.A man seems to be talking about his experience with a woman. This man divulges
his heart to the woman he loves, but it gets him no where, for she is not impressed. The
tone used in this poem is one of persuasionhe lost his truly beloved brother due to illness.
Although the poem seems to be talking about a woman he could be talking about the
death of his brother. When he writes \'Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears\' this could be
trembling as in scared of death or alternatively cold as an effect ofhis illness. If you have
researched Blake you will also know that he had a connection with angels and spirits
once his brother died, so the traveller could be either an angel or a spirit coming to take
his brother away \'silently and invisebly\' spirts cant be seen or heard.
A saw a chaple all of gold:It is undeniable that Blake is disgusted with the corrupt nature
of the established church, but the image of the serpent, and the use of white and gold in
the portrayal of the church may have an alternative meaning. The references to gold and
precious jewels may represent the growing wealth and power of the church to the
detriment of the rest of society, and the serpent in many of Blake's poems has been read
as a representation of Emmanuel Swedenborg, an ex-friend of Blake who shared his
disgust in the church, but instead of destroying it as he intended to do (and perhaps as
Blake thought Swedenborg should do), he instead perverted it to his own purposes to gain
his own following and gather power for himself. Swedenborg is also briefly referred to
by name in the Argument of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. the poem seems to be
talking about the Christian Church's continual struggle against its enemy, the Devil
symbolised by the serpent. However, the images Blake chooses to use indicate that he
feels that the established church has lost its positive qualities and become corrupt. The
true believers are pictured as being in mourning over this state of affairs, and the fact that
they are "without" suggests that true believers feel excluded from the established church,
either by their own choice or because they no longer fit in - "none did dare to enter in".
The Serpent, I feel, is a deliberately phallic symbol used to show how the church has
been desecrated. Reading the poem, one almost feels that it is an actual rape being
described. the church is represented as a virtuous virgin through the use of colour and
precious elements. White is usually a symbol of purity. Gold, for a long time represented
the most precious and valuable items. Rubies is another Christian allusion. Solomon
describes a viruous woman as being priced "above rubies" and in time, rubies were used
to sympolise chastity. The serpent is seen as "raping" the churh and robbing it of its
virtue and at the climax of this he vomits or ejaculates "his poison out/On the bread and
on the wine". Blake is clearly expressing his digust of the established church in this
poem.
The little blake boy: In this poem Blake deals with the suffering of The blacks in the
hand of white pepole and it shows how the whites used to look down upon them in the
name of colour and racial discimination.In the Little Black Boy Blake shows his hatred
for the slave trade. The poem shows Blake�s view for racial equality, that the black boy
should not be criticized and put in the slave trade because his �soul is white� and
subsequently there is no difference between black and white people. Blake views were
radical however the views are more modern but the poem suggests if your black your
missing something �but I am black as if bereaved of light� The little black boy shows his
jealousy for the white boy. � white as an angel� the white can be interpreted as more
than just the skin colour because white is compared to an angel.
This is about race and religion and how the two and interidentified. though Blake felt strongly
about the chimney sweep trade, this is about race and the innocence of children. this is shown in
the line "i FROM black". this hints at an innate blckness...not the cause of chimney sweeping.
Lines written in early spring:
In this poem Wordsworth describes a bittersweet moment. The speaker reclines in a beautiful
grove surrounded by the "blended notes" of nature, and yet, even as he enjoys the scene, it
inspires a melancholy mood and the speaker begins to have dark thoughts about humanity.
Nature has connected itself to the speaker's soul, leading him to sadly consider "What man has
made of man." Even as he does this, however, he takes in the beautiful scene that surrounds him
At the end of the poem the speaker looks more closely at the seemingly jubilant birds,
plants, and other creatures of nature, trying to decide whether or not they are really full of
pleasure. He decides that they are. In the last stanza, he asks whether, if it is true that
nature is full of pleasure, he then has a good reason to be sad about "what man has made
of man":"Lines Written in Early Spring" has a rather simple form: it is composed of only
six four-line stanzas, and is written in iambs with an abab rhyme scheme for each stanza.
The simplicity of the poem is representative of the bulk of the rest of Wordsworth's
works (and of most Romantic poetry). The simple words and style of the Romantic
Movement came from a complete rejection of the flowery, lofty style that was popular in
previous years.The connection with nature in this poem is very apparent. Wordsworth
strengthens the bond by placing the speaker in the middle of nature, all alone except for
the plants and animals around him. He also personifies nature, giving her the ability to
make decisions, to link herself to his soul, and to experience pleasure. Nature, in this
poem, does everything right; it is man who has failed by rejecting nature.Another
interesting aspect of this poem is the fact that the perfection of nature saddens the
speaker. Melancholy sets in almost immediately because of the striking contrast between
nature and humanity. The speaker seems to feel that it is his responsibility to ponder the
mistakes of humanity. This is especially evident in the question posed in the last
stanza.The speaker suggests that man can simultaneously be a part of nature and rational,
in control of himself, and in control of his surroundings. The speaker is a thoughtful
being, a philosopher of sorts, and is certainly reasonable, and yet he is at peace with
nature in a way that would likely strike many of his contemporaries as odd.
The throne:Its that kind of attitude that drove Martha to hang her baby. This is what Wordsworth
is getting at, the attitudes and ideas of that day (still evidentally present in this day).William
Wordsworth’s “The Thorn,” tells a story about a woman’s hardship dealing with her
incredible loss and grief. The poem starts with a large, wretched, old, grey thorn
standing erect on a mountain top. Also on the mountain top is a muddy pond of water, a
heap of moss, and what is understood to be an infant’s grave. At this location, a
distraught woman in a scarlet cloak is crying out. The woman, Martha Ray, cries and
cries day and night, sitting beside the thorn. Previously, Martha had experienced
immense happiness while in a relationship with a man named Stephen Hill. However,
on their wedding day, before their vows, Stephen abandoned her. Martha was pregnant
with their baby, but what later happened to the baby is unknown. The villagers in town
are curious to the whereabouts of her baby; some say it was hung, others say she
drowned it in a pond, but no one even knows if the baby was born alive. However, the
villagers believe the baby is buried beneath the fair moss that laid on top of the
mountain. Martha sits on the mountain top next to the wretched thorn and the assumed
grave of the baby and continually cries. One curious and brave man climbed the
mountain to find Martha sitting on the ground crying out, “Oh misery! Oh misery!”
In “The Thorn,” found in the poetry collection “Lyrical Ballads,” nature is incorporated
into the poems. I believe the thorn represents Martha’s grieving presence. After being
jilted and left pregnant, Martha’s incredible sadness and subsequent loss is expressed
through her continual cries. The thorn which is short, dark, old, and grey represents
distraught Martha and her sadness. The beautiful mossy area which Wordsworth
references to be the grave of the baby, represents the beautiful baby Martha Ray was
pregnant with. A question that arose when reading “The Thorn” was did Martha Ray kill
the baby? I do not think that Martha killed the baby and I believe something happened to
the baby while it was still in her womb.
Wordsworth incorporates nature into all of his characters and all aspects of his poetry
making it possible for readers to make a connection to his poetry through their daily
contact with nature.
"We Are Seven"The speaker begins this poem by asking what a simple child who is full
of life could know about death. He then meets "a little cottage Girl" who is eight years
old and has thick curly hair. She is rustic and woodsy, but very beautiful, and she makes
the speaker happy. He asks her how many siblings she has, to which she replies that there
are seven including her: The speaker then asks the child where her brothers and sisters
are. She replies "Seven are we," and tells him that two are in a town called Conway, two
are at sea, and two lie in the church-yard. She and her mother live near the graves:
The speaker is confused and asks her how they can be seven, if two are in Conway and
two gone to sea. To this, the little girl simply replies, "Seven boys and girls are we; / Two
of us in the churchyard lie, / Beneath the churchyard tree." The speaker says that if two
are dead, then there are only five left, but the little girl tells him that their green graves
are nearby, and that she often goes to sew or eat supper there while singing to her
deceased siblings:
The little girl then explains that first her sister Jane died from sickness. She and her
brother John would play around her grave until he also died. Now he lies next to Jane:
The man again asks how many siblings she has now that two are dead. She replies
quickly, "O Master! we are seven." The man tries to convince her saying, "But they are
dead," but he realizes that his words are wasted. The poem ends with the little girl saying,
"Nay, we are seven!""We Are Seven" was written in 1798, when Wordsworth was only
18 years old. The poem is composed of sixteen four-line stanzas, and ends with one five-
line stanza. Each stanza has an abab rhyming pattern. Wordsworth has noted that he
wrote the last line of this poem first, and that his good friend Samuel Coleridge wrote the
first few stanzas.The poem is an interesting conversation between a man and a young girl.
It is especially intriguing because the conversation could have been less than five lines,
and yet it is 69 lines long. The reason for this is that the man cannot accept that the young
girl still feels she is one of seven siblings even after two of her siblings have died, and
even though she now lives at home alone with her mother. The speaker begins the poem
with the question of what a child should know of death. Near the beginning it seems as if
the little girl understands very little. She seems almost to be in denial about the deaths of
her siblings, especially because she continues to spend time with them and sing to them.
By the end of the poem, however, the reader is left with the feeling that perhaps the little
girl understands more about life and death than the man to whom she is speaking. She
refuses to become incapacitated by grief, or to cast the deceased out of her life. Instead
she accepts that things change, and continues living as happily as she can.