need help understanding Blake's "a cradle song"

To get the full import of a verse, the context (= whole poem) is important:

Sleep! sleep! beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er the joys of night;
Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet Babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart does rest.

O! the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep.
When thy little heart does wake
Then the dreadful lightnings break,

From thy cheek and from thy eye,
O'er the youthful harvests nigh.
Infant wiles and infant smiles
Heaven and Earth of peace beguiles.


Kendra, Blake (and for that matter poetry in general) can be tricky, but if you consider the poem as a whole, you can't help but notice a trace of cynicism; Blake seems to be illustrating, as it were, the presence of Original Sin even in the angelic-looking infant. It's like I've often thought about the baby Hitler: all of us would have no doubt thought he was cute (the way most babies are). But yet, look what lurked within him!

Perhaps this poem could be summed up as an argument against the theory of humans as tabulae rasae?

Hope this helps.

Except for that precocious little mustache.

ROTFL! You must have X-ray vision, Val! I never saw that mustache on his baby pix.

(BTW, your "space available" photo is hilarious!)

Dear Kendrajean32,

You may compare it to «A Cradle Song» in Songs of Innocence:-

Sweet dreams, form a shade
O'er my lovely infant's head;
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams.

Sweet sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep, Angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child.

Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight;
Sweet smiles, mother's smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes.
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep, sleep, happy child,
All creation slept and smil'd;
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee thy mother weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe, once like thee,
Thy Maker lay and wept for me,

Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee

Smiles on thee, on me, on all;
Who became an infant small.
Infant smiles are His own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.

You may say that the version Diagknowz quotes is its complement. It is strange that it was not included in the Songs of Experience.

Kind regards,
Goldmund

"Goldmund," eh? As in Hesse's NARZISS UND..., or as in "Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund," or as in, your most august upper orifice is oracular?

(Pay no heed to the zany verbal antix of a pun-addicted, trilingual for. lang. instructor! )