Infant Sorrow
Infant Sorrow
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, 193. PR 4141 B45 Robarts Library
2Into the dangerous world I leapt:
3Helpless, naked, piping loud,
5Struggling in my father's hands,
6Striving against my swaddling bands,
7Bound and weary, I thought best
8To sulk upon my mother's breast.
Notes
1] The companion poem to "Infant Joy" in Poems of Innocence (1789). Back to Line
4] cloud: the placenta, expelled in childbirth. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1794
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme
Form