The illustration on the plate shows the nurse sitting and watching the children dancing merrily in a ring, under the text and the lower branch of a tree. The weeping willow in the right-hand margin is perhaps a reminder that not all life is fun and game.
This poem is composed of four stanzas. It expresses with perfect simplicity the happy irresponsibility of childhood. It is said that few besides Blake could have written such a successful poem on the delight of being allowed to play a little longer until dusk.
"When the voices of children are heard on the green"
When the voices of children are heard on the green(1)
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 (2) of night arise
Come home 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 and play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed."
The little ones leaped (3) and shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills echoed.
(Taken from: W.Blake, Songs of Innocence.)
Notes:
1. green: a common grassy area where children play. 2. dews: atmospheric vapour condensing in small drops on cool surfaces at night. 3. leaped: jumped.
ANALYSIS
Stylistic features
1. Read the first stanza of the poem and identify the speaking voice.
2. Read on stanzas 2-3-4 and say whether you notice any differences in the layout of the poem on the page.
3. What does the presence of inverted commas reveal?
4. Consider the structure of the whole poem and decide which stanzas and lines are written in dramatic form, and which ones are narrative and descriptive.
5. Is the speaker of stanzas 2-3-4 (lines 5-14) the same as in stanza 1?
6. Are there more than one speakers? Identify them.
7. Determine the form of stanzas 2-3-4, (line 5-14).
8. Who is the speaker in lines 15-16?
9. Determine the rhyme scheme of the poem.
10. Read the whole poem aloud and identify its internal rhymes. Quote from the text.
Line 1: .............................................................
Line 2: .............................................................
Line 3: .............................................................
Line 4: .............................................................
Line 5: .............................................................
Line 6: .............................................................
Line 7: .............................................................
Line 8: .............................................................
Line 9: .............................................................
Line 10: ............................................................
Line 11: ............................................................
Line 12: ............................................................
Line 13: ............................................................
Line 14: ............................................................
Line 15: ............................................................
Line 16: ............................................................
Close Reading: Stanza 1.
11. What is the poet describing in the first stanza?
12. Blake is describing a pastoral setting which brings him peace. Quote phrases and words which point out the poet's reaction.
Spontaneity/content
Peace/order
13. Comment on the effect the scene which is being described in stanza one has on the poet.
Stanza 2
14. What happens in the second stanza?
Stanza 3
15. What's the children's reaction?
Stanza 4
16. What is the reaction of the nurse?
17. As you have seen the state of "Innocence" perceived throughout the poem is described through words involving the senses. The children are happy and convey a feeling of joy. Specify.
18. List the auditory and visual elements in the table below.
Auditory elements
Visual elements
19. The poem is also based on a series of contrasting images. Give examples.
20. Does nature share the children's joy? Substantiate your answer.
21. This is a poem of the "Innocence" collection. What images do you associate with the innocent playing of the children?
NURSE'S SONG
BEFORE YOU READ
1. In the Innocence "Nurse's Song" Blake has presented the joys of childhood, symbol of imagination, creative power, innocence and purity, in a a natural and protected world, which is a vision of innocence. What do you expect Blake to depict in the correspondent Experience "Nurse's Song"?
2. Compare your predictions with Blake's scenes.
The Illustration and the Poem
The illustration shows a doorway framed in grape-clustered vines and an adolescent boy who is allowing his hair to be combed by the nurse; we are to assume his repressed resentment of the woman's power over him and his secret resolution to rebel. A girl, probably his more docile sister sits quietly behind him. The evil of female domination, so destructive of the male personality, already explicit in this poem, was often in Blake's mind, as we know from passages in other writings. The cottage door from which the boy has come is conspicuously wreathed with vines, symbol of the pleasures he will find in life.
This song is a parody of the contrary poem in Songs of Innocence. The difference is emphasized by the form of the title "NURSES Song" ("Songs of Experience") instead of "Nurses Song" ("Songs of Innocence"). In this poem the words are spoken only by the nurse. The children, with their "whisperings in the dale", are no longer real children, but are adolescents aware of sex. The nurse recalls with regret how she wasted her spring-time without real gratification, and tells the "children" that their winter and night will be spoiled by repression and hypocrisy. Her face turns "green and pale" (l. 4) because that is traditionally the colour of the sex-starved spinster, sick with longings for experiences which will never be hers.
"When the voices of children are heard on the green"
When the voices of children are heard on the green
And whisperings are in the dale,(1)
The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,
My face turns green and pale.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise:
Your spring & and your day are wasted in play,
And your winter and night in disguise.(2)
(Taken from: William Blake, Songs of Experience.)
Notes:
1. dale: valley. 2. disguise: the concealment of reality; false appearances and hypocrisy.
JUXTAPOSED ANALYSIS
Stylistic features
1. Read the whole the poem and identify the narrating voice.
2. Compare the two poems, the Innocence and Experience "Nurse's Song" and say whether you notice any differences in the layout of the poem on the page.
3. Is the Experience "Nurse's Song" dramatic in structure?
4. Juxtapose the speakers that appear in both poems.
1. Innocence "Nurse's Song"
Experience "Nurse's Song
5. Determine the structure of the poem.
6. Determine the rhyme scheme pattern of the poem, and say whether it is different from the pattern of the Innocence "Nurse's Song".
7. Read the whole poem aloud and identify internal rhymes. Quote from the text.
Line 1: .............................................................
Line 2: .............................................................
Line 3: .............................................................
Line 4: .............................................................
Line 5: .............................................................
Line 6: .............................................................
Line 7: .............................................................
Line 8: .............................................................
Close Reading: Stanza 1.
8. What is the Nurse recollecting in stanza 1? Paraphrase.
Stanza 2.
9. What is the Nurse's comment in stanza 2? Paraphrase.
10. What do lines 7 and 8 really mean?
11. Which stages of human life do "winter" and "night" represent?
12. Concentrate your attention on the first two lines of the poem and say what the words "voices" (l. 1) and "whisperings" reveal.
13. Focus you attention on the Nurse, the narrating voice. What feelings does she express?
14. Which words reveal the nurse is showing regret about having spent a life without real gratification?
15. This poem of "Experience" is the direct counterpart to the poem of "Innocence" of the same title. Read the first stanza and list the expressions which reveal the changed atmosphere, the passage from the world of Innocence into Experience. Read the first stanza and quote the phrases expressing this change.
Innocence
Experience
16. Compare "Nurse's Song" II with "Nurse's Song" I and say what they have in common in their literal from. Quote from the texts.
17. Compare the internal rhymes you have identified in both poems, and determine in which one they carry negative associations of meaning. Substantiate your answer.
18. The second line of this poem contains a couple of images opposed to the corresponding line in poem I. Juxtapose the words.
1. Innocence "Nurse's Poem"
Experience "Nurse's Poem
19. Blake usually presents symbols of psychological states. Which of the words from line 1 and 2 quoted above stand for the innocent joy of childhood, and which for the sorrowful experience of maturity?
Joy
Sadness
l. 1: .................
l. 2:..................
l. 1: ..................
l. 2:...................
20. The two poems themselves may be considered as symbols of psychological states and ages in man's life. Substantiate.
1. Innocence "Nurse's Poem"
Experience "Nurse's Poem
age:..................
symbol:................
age:....................
symbol:.................
21. In the same way find and juxtapose all the other words in both poems which symbolize the two "contrary states of human soul."
Innocence( "Nurse's Poem" 1)
Experience ("Nurse's Poem" 2
)
22. In the Innocence "Nurse's Song" nature seems to share the joyous voices and play of the children. Does nature share this vision of innocence in the Experience "Nurse's Song"? Substantiate.
23. What has happened to the vision of innocence depicted in the first "Nurse's Song?" What is Experience associated with?
Figures of Speech
24. The world of Experience is more complex the the world of Innocence. Through which figures of speech does Blake express the symbolism of his view in the Experience "Nurse's Song?"
25. What do the figures of speech you have listed stand for in Blake's symbolism? Juxtapose them with their meaning.
