Reading a Blake poem requires one to be responsive to the poem's language and imagery and open to nagging doubts that are often occasioned by what on closer inspection looks like curious word choice or even contradiction. In that slowing down, which occurs because of form or diction or outright logical inconsistency, we are forced to confront the provocative satire that is almost always at the heart of Blake's work.
Take for example the poem "Holy Thursday," originally published in Songs of Innocence. This poem, like so many of the Songs of Innocence poems, doesn't strike one as being particularly rich or profound.
On first read, the poem appears to describe an event, the gathering of charity school children for an annual service in St. Paul's Cathedral in London on Ascension Day. For those of you not familiar with St. Paul's, it is the main Anglican cathedral in London, a magnificent edifice designed by the noted architect Christopher Wren and built at the end of the 17th century to replace the original St. Paul's, which was destroyed by the Great Fire of London.
Here's an artist's rendering from around Blake's time:
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Looking again at the poem, probably what one notices first is the mostly "positive" language: innocent, clean, wands, white, snow, flowers, radiance, lambs, innocent, heaven, voice of song, harmonious, Heaven, wise, guardians, cherish, angel. Also, the last line feels like the "moral" of the poem, similar to the ending of Blake's "The Chimney-Sweeper" and others.
But what else begins to surface? Most of the language is "positive" but there are a few "off-notes." For example, the beadles are described as "grey-headed," which, of course, might simply point to their age. Later, after all, they are called "aged men" and "wise guardians." But "grey-headed" stands out for another reason. Note all of the color in the first stanza: the children are "red, and blue, and green," while the adults are "grey." And the "wands" they carry are "as white as snow," which in the initial context of the poem suggests innocence (the word "innocent" occurs twice in the poem). But what exactly are these "wands" they carry? Wand seems like a pretty fanciful word for the context. Are we to imagine that the beadles are magicians or endowed with magical powers? Quick Robin, to the OED!
In fact, Blake's use of "wand" is pretty clever. The word certainly has its fanciful meaning (as in a certain shop in Diagon Alley), but it also has a more prosaic and more menacing one. According to the OED, a "wand" is also a "rod or staff borne as a sign of office; esp. a tall slender rod of white wood . . . carried erect by an officer of the royal household or of a court of justice, by a verger or beadle, or by an official whose duty is to walk before a judge or other high dignitary on occasions of ceremony." This meaning seems perfectly appropriate to the context. The "grey-headed beadles" are walking before the children carrying their ceremonial white wand. But besides ceremony, why might a beadle be carrying a wand? And what exactly is a beadle? Back to the OED!
If you read Dickens' novels you already know what a beadle is. A beadle is a minor church functionary usually charged with keeping order, sort of like an usher in church or a vice-principal in school. That last comment is not facetious. Beadles were often in charge of discipline at parish schools and charity schools. Charity schools? Discipline? Wands? Blake uses the word "wand" because we can read it for a split-second as positive (ooh! magic!), and then read it in context (oh, yeah, part of the ceremony), and then read it as suggestive of the world outside this little show (oh, yeah, discipline, school, children).
We can now see that the poem sets up a sharp contrast between the adults and the children. The children are the source of our "positive" reading, the language used to describe them never varying from what appears to be a naive optimism. Nine of the poem's twelve lines focus on the children, so our initially "positive" reading is to be expected. Only two lines focus specifically on the adults, though, one could certainly argue that the last line is an "adult" line. Now the contrasts seem striking. We already noted the color contrast in the first stanza, the children like a rainbow conducted into the cathedral by "grey-headed" adults. They are "flowers," which picks up on the color imagery of the first stanza, but which also suggests mortality (countless antecedents including "all flesh is grass"). They possess a "radiance all their own," which both excludes the adults from being part of it or the source of it and suggests that the adults lack this radiance (they are "grey-headed" after all). And it's interesting to think that the radiance can only be "all their own," like the chimney-sweepers comforting each other in a world in which they (children) are exploited by adults who not only cannot be trusted but who are literally their oppressors.
The last key contrast occurs at the end. Note how the children are rising up or ascending. They are "raising their innocent hands," and they "raise to heaven the voice of song." Do you remember what Holy Thursday commemorates? It is also known as Ascension Day. It commemorates the bodily ascension of Christ into Heaven (described in two of the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles) that has become incorporated into the Nicene Creed: "He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end." So the children are ascending, like Christ, into Heaven. They are referred to line 7 as "lambs," though that reference was probably completely unsurprising given Blake's frequent association of children with lambs, an association we have already questioned (sacrificial) and found to be more provocative than it appears to be. Where are the adults amidst all this ascending into Heaven? The poem's speaker tells us, "Beneath them sit the aged men." They are clearly not ascending. The first stanza's sharp contrast used color--we as readers are asked to visualize the stark contrast between the colorful children and the grey beadles. In the last stanza the contrast is spatial--the children are ascending while the adults sit.
At this point in the poem we should read the last phrase used to describe the adults, "wise guardians of the poor," as deeply ironic. How exactly are the beadles, or any of the adults that we are to imagine involved in "guarding" these children, wise? In fact, the term "guardian of the poor" is an actual job title given to officials elected to the parish board in charge of administering the poor laws, so at some level Blake's use of this phrase is purely descriptive--they are, in fact, Guardians of the Poor. But it's hard not to hear the "double-ness" in "guard," the root of guardian, which allows the word to refer to both one who protects and defends the children and one who, like a prison guard, keeps an eye on and controls the children.
This final phrase, "wise guardians of the poor," also returns us to the purpose of the event being described--the annual ceremony of conducting the charity school children into St. Paul's Cathedral for a special service. This ritual of public pity and public self-congratulation occasions the last line of the poem: "Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door." This last line, which alludes to a Biblical passage (Hebrews 13:1-2) concerned with the treatment of strangers, probably raises the question with which we might have started: Who is the speaker? Unlike most of the other Songs of Innocence, the speaker is not a child. When we reach the end "The Chimney-Sweeper" and hear the child speaker repeat the conduct homily "if all do their duty they need not fear harm," the effect is a curious combination of poignancy and outrage. When we reach the end of "Holy Thursday" and hear our presumably adult speaker repeat the proverbial warning against turning away an angel from your door, our response is probably not at all touched by poignancy. Instead, this reading of the Holy Thursday production by our self-satisfied speaker probably strikes us the same way a person's boast about how much they give to charity strikes us--self-serving, narcissistic, deflecting. Or as Blake himself put it in "The Human Abstract" in the Songs of Experience, "Pity would be no more, / If we did not make somebody Poor." In "Holy Thursday," note the close conjunction of "poor" (end of line 11) and "pity" (two words later), and finally note the word that comes between them, "cherish." The speaker tells us to "cherish pity." Cherish pity? Cherish means "to hold dear, treat with tenderness and affection," and "to treat with fostering care, foster tenderly, nurse (children, young creatures)." Hmm, let's look around this poem to see what we can cherish. Too bad there aren't any children available to cherish, because if we are going to be cherishing anything it probably ought to be children. Oh well, let's cherish "pity" instead, and pat ourselves on the back for being wise guardians of the poor, and think of those wands carried by the beadles as magical, and take credit for the radiance of the children.
Take for example the poem "Holy Thursday," originally published in Songs of Innocence. This poem, like so many of the Songs of Innocence poems, doesn't strike one as being particularly rich or profound.
Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green
Grey-headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow
O what a multitude they seemd 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 On first read, the poem appears to describe an event, the gathering of charity school children for an annual service in St. Paul's Cathedral in London on Ascension Day. For those of you not familiar with St. Paul's, it is the main Anglican cathedral in London, a magnificent edifice designed by the noted architect Christopher Wren and built at the end of the 17th century to replace the original St. Paul's, which was destroyed by the Great Fire of London.
Here's an artist's rendering from around Blake's time:
Looking again at the poem, probably what one notices first is the mostly "positive" language: innocent, clean, wands, white, snow, flowers, radiance, lambs, innocent, heaven, voice of song, harmonious, Heaven, wise, guardians, cherish, angel. Also, the last line feels like the "moral" of the poem, similar to the ending of Blake's "The Chimney-Sweeper" and others.
But what else begins to surface? Most of the language is "positive" but there are a few "off-notes." For example, the beadles are described as "grey-headed," which, of course, might simply point to their age. Later, after all, they are called "aged men" and "wise guardians." But "grey-headed" stands out for another reason. Note all of the color in the first stanza: the children are "red, and blue, and green," while the adults are "grey." And the "wands" they carry are "as white as snow," which in the initial context of the poem suggests innocence (the word "innocent" occurs twice in the poem). But what exactly are these "wands" they carry? Wand seems like a pretty fanciful word for the context. Are we to imagine that the beadles are magicians or endowed with magical powers? Quick Robin, to the OED!
In fact, Blake's use of "wand" is pretty clever. The word certainly has its fanciful meaning (as in a certain shop in Diagon Alley), but it also has a more prosaic and more menacing one. According to the OED, a "wand" is also a "rod or staff borne as a sign of office; esp. a tall slender rod of white wood . . . carried erect by an officer of the royal household or of a court of justice, by a verger or beadle, or by an official whose duty is to walk before a judge or other high dignitary on occasions of ceremony." This meaning seems perfectly appropriate to the context. The "grey-headed beadles" are walking before the children carrying their ceremonial white wand. But besides ceremony, why might a beadle be carrying a wand? And what exactly is a beadle? Back to the OED!
If you read Dickens' novels you already know what a beadle is. A beadle is a minor church functionary usually charged with keeping order, sort of like an usher in church or a vice-principal in school. That last comment is not facetious. Beadles were often in charge of discipline at parish schools and charity schools. Charity schools? Discipline? Wands? Blake uses the word "wand" because we can read it for a split-second as positive (ooh! magic!), and then read it in context (oh, yeah, part of the ceremony), and then read it as suggestive of the world outside this little show (oh, yeah, discipline, school, children).
We can now see that the poem sets up a sharp contrast between the adults and the children. The children are the source of our "positive" reading, the language used to describe them never varying from what appears to be a naive optimism. Nine of the poem's twelve lines focus on the children, so our initially "positive" reading is to be expected. Only two lines focus specifically on the adults, though, one could certainly argue that the last line is an "adult" line. Now the contrasts seem striking. We already noted the color contrast in the first stanza, the children like a rainbow conducted into the cathedral by "grey-headed" adults. They are "flowers," which picks up on the color imagery of the first stanza, but which also suggests mortality (countless antecedents including "all flesh is grass"). They possess a "radiance all their own," which both excludes the adults from being part of it or the source of it and suggests that the adults lack this radiance (they are "grey-headed" after all). And it's interesting to think that the radiance can only be "all their own," like the chimney-sweepers comforting each other in a world in which they (children) are exploited by adults who not only cannot be trusted but who are literally their oppressors.
The last key contrast occurs at the end. Note how the children are rising up or ascending. They are "raising their innocent hands," and they "raise to heaven the voice of song." Do you remember what Holy Thursday commemorates? It is also known as Ascension Day. It commemorates the bodily ascension of Christ into Heaven (described in two of the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles) that has become incorporated into the Nicene Creed: "He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end." So the children are ascending, like Christ, into Heaven. They are referred to line 7 as "lambs," though that reference was probably completely unsurprising given Blake's frequent association of children with lambs, an association we have already questioned (sacrificial) and found to be more provocative than it appears to be. Where are the adults amidst all this ascending into Heaven? The poem's speaker tells us, "Beneath them sit the aged men." They are clearly not ascending. The first stanza's sharp contrast used color--we as readers are asked to visualize the stark contrast between the colorful children and the grey beadles. In the last stanza the contrast is spatial--the children are ascending while the adults sit.
At this point in the poem we should read the last phrase used to describe the adults, "wise guardians of the poor," as deeply ironic. How exactly are the beadles, or any of the adults that we are to imagine involved in "guarding" these children, wise? In fact, the term "guardian of the poor" is an actual job title given to officials elected to the parish board in charge of administering the poor laws, so at some level Blake's use of this phrase is purely descriptive--they are, in fact, Guardians of the Poor. But it's hard not to hear the "double-ness" in "guard," the root of guardian, which allows the word to refer to both one who protects and defends the children and one who, like a prison guard, keeps an eye on and controls the children.
This final phrase, "wise guardians of the poor," also returns us to the purpose of the event being described--the annual ceremony of conducting the charity school children into St. Paul's Cathedral for a special service. This ritual of public pity and public self-congratulation occasions the last line of the poem: "Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door." This last line, which alludes to a Biblical passage (Hebrews 13:1-2) concerned with the treatment of strangers, probably raises the question with which we might have started: Who is the speaker? Unlike most of the other Songs of Innocence, the speaker is not a child. When we reach the end "The Chimney-Sweeper" and hear the child speaker repeat the conduct homily "if all do their duty they need not fear harm," the effect is a curious combination of poignancy and outrage. When we reach the end of "Holy Thursday" and hear our presumably adult speaker repeat the proverbial warning against turning away an angel from your door, our response is probably not at all touched by poignancy. Instead, this reading of the Holy Thursday production by our self-satisfied speaker probably strikes us the same way a person's boast about how much they give to charity strikes us--self-serving, narcissistic, deflecting. Or as Blake himself put it in "The Human Abstract" in the Songs of Experience, "Pity would be no more, / If we did not make somebody Poor." In "Holy Thursday," note the close conjunction of "poor" (end of line 11) and "pity" (two words later), and finally note the word that comes between them, "cherish." The speaker tells us to "cherish pity." Cherish pity? Cherish means "to hold dear, treat with tenderness and affection," and "to treat with fostering care, foster tenderly, nurse (children, young creatures)." Hmm, let's look around this poem to see what we can cherish. Too bad there aren't any children available to cherish, because if we are going to be cherishing anything it probably ought to be children. Oh well, let's cherish "pity" instead, and pat ourselves on the back for being wise guardians of the poor, and think of those wands carried by the beadles as magical, and take credit for the radiance of the children.
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