innocence and experience
01.12.2005 // 2:11 p.m.i stayed up late last night finishing up some poetry paraphrases for my brit lit ii class... the assignment was "holy thursday" from william blake's songs of innocence and experience... which is actually two seperate groupings of poems, so technically there are the songs of innocence and the songs of experience...
here is "holy thursday" from songs of innocence...
HOLY THURSDAY
'Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green
Grey headed beadles walk'd before with wands as white as snow
Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow
O what a multitude they seem'd these flowers of London town
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door
and here is "holy thursday" from songs of experience...
HOLY THURSDAY
Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land, -
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns,
It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appal.
(i would love to hear what other people think about these two poems... perhaps i'll even post my own analysis after i get a grade)
earlier today, i was thinking about the difference between innocence and experience in the context of a completely different social issue, love and relationships...
i.e. in my innocence, i once believed in reciprocal love... a love in which both partners cared equally for each other... but after several years of experience and quite a few (metaphorical) bumps and bruises along the way, i now know that love waxes and wanes... a partner will sometimes love you more and sometimes love you less... and sometimes... not at all... so essentially, the expectation of completely reciprocal love is unreasonable & unrealistic even though it is the ideal
sometimes, i wish that i could return to that innocence because along with the realization that reciprocal love is an unrealistic ideal, come all of the trust issues that i can not even begin to deny having... i find it so difficult to take that leap of faith and trust someone else with my heart... already i feel myself holding back, hiding my feelings...
