Notes
14] the pole: the North Star.
16] Blake's Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (from Genesis), by the eating of apples from which Eve and Adam fell and were cast by God out of Eden and punished with death. Here the speaker would seem to be God, not Satan, who tempted Eve to eat the fruit but did not plant the tree.
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 (W. Blake, 1794). Blake's Illuminated Books, ed. David Bindman (Princeton, NJ: William Blake Trust; London: Tate Gallery, 1991-). See Vol. 2. PR 4142 B46 1991 Robarts Library. Text from William Blake's Writings, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978): I, 194-95. PR 4141 B45 Robarts Library
First publication date:
1794
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2003
Recent editing: 1:2003/7/22
Form: quatrains
Rhyme: aabb