Notes
7] Starry Jealousy. The stars represent the exile of Earth from Heaven, often thought of as in the stars. There is also an allusion to the myth of Argus and Io.
10] Father: not God but the old man in the sky represented in Blake's symbolism as Urizen (see note on "The Book of Urizen" below).
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: William Blake, Songs of Experience (1794). Blake's Illuminated Books, ed. David Bindman (Princeton, NJ: William Blake Trust; London: Tate Gallery, 1991-). See Vol. 2. PR 4142 B46 1991 ROBA.
First publication date:
1794
RPO poem editor: Northrop Frye
RP edition: 3RP 2.281.
Recent editing: 4:2002/3/14
Rhyme: mainly abaab