Holy Thursday: Is this a holy thing to see

Blake, William (1757 - 1827)

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.

1Is this a holy thing to see

2In a rich and fruitful land,

3Babes reduc'd to misery,

4Fed with cold and usurous hand?

5Is that trembling cry a song?

6Can it be a song of joy?

7And so many children poor?

8It is a land of poverty!

9And their sun does never shine,

10And their fields are bleak and bare,

11And their ways are fill'd with thorns:

12It is eternal winter there.

13For where-e'er the sun does shine,

14And where-e'er the rain does fall,

15Babe can never hunger there,

16Nor poverty the mind appall.

Publication Start Year

1794

RPO poem Editors

Northrop Frye

RPO Edition

3RP 2.282.

Rhyme

abab