Nurse's Song(Innocence)
William Blake
When voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still
Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies
No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep
Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills echoed
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still
Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies
No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep
Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills echoed
In this poem, Blake parodies his earlier
“Nurse’s Song” from Songs of
Innocence. The nurse hears the whispering of her charges in the dell,
indicating some secretive activity among the youths. Upon hearing their voices,
the nurse’s face “turns green and pale,” an image associated with the unfulfilled
spinster in Blake’s day. That she reflects upon missed pleasures suggests that
the secretive children are in fact adolescents becoming aware of their own
sexuality, a theme in keeping with the overall tone of Songs of Experience.
The nurse feels that she wasted her youth
and calls the children home, warning them that their daylight and their
youthful lives are wasted in play while their winter and night, their adulthood
and old age, will be wasted “in disguise.” Since the sun has already set when the
nurse calls them in, it is reasonable to suppose that the youths have already
become sexually active and will now reap the consequences envisioned by the
nurse: a sense of loss and loneliness that cannot be assuaged.
The poem's rhyme scheme, ABCB DEFE, deviates
slightly from the common ABAB CDCD scheme, which suggests discontent on the
part of the nurse, whose words disrupt the more simplistic rhymes of childhood.
Structurally, this poem follows "The Chimney Sweeper" in its
abbreviation of the Innocence counterpart. The experienced Nurse's song is half
as long, with two stanzas rather than four. The first lines echo the
"Nurse's Song" from Songs
of Innocence, but there the similarities end. This Nurse is more cynical
and seems almost delighted in the wasted day and the impending end of innocence
and childhood that accompanies it.
Analysis by: Darrell Tan(31) 2/3
This is actually an analysis of Nurse's Song from 'Songs of Experience' not 'Songs of Innocence'; the analysis here is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteIf you had read the poem carefully, you would have realised that the nurse in this version encourages the children to play.
In addition, online notes should only be used as a reference for your own analysis, not to be used entirely in your assignment.
ReplyDelete