William Blake's "Holy Thursday"

William Blake's "Holy Thursday"

There is no denying that William Black is an idiosyncratic figure in history and also, a man who's state of mind can be questionable. However, with all the queer characteristics aside, his poems are definitely a work of a genius. Specifically looking at Songs of Innocence and Experience and further into "Holy Thursday", his depth of perception and style of deliverance of his message leaves so much room for analysis and questions.

The innocence part of "Holy Thursday" at a glance is longer horizontally than typical poems, making it look like a book. The ending words demonstrate a AABB rhyme scheme, a very easy and paired-like. Reading the poem, we are exposed to children who are in pairs walking in sync behind their beadles. Once again showing Blake's like for pairs because it gives a sense of companionship like married couples. The different colors, red, blue, green, grey, and white are the protruding details of the first stanza. As innocence is oblivious to the 'black and white' version of the world, it can afford to cloth itself with bright colors and grey that dims the awful nature of black. As the children enter as "a multitude", the congregation perceives them as "flowers", "lambs", and radiant creatures. They "raise their innocent hands". This picture reminds me of priests offering their sacrifices; however, the irony is that the children who are referred to as lambs are raising their hands. That signifies that children are unaware of what they are: sacrifices for the adults. The adults view them and can forget for just a moment about the calamities that occur in their lives. Maybe the children are offering themselves to save the befallen adults from hell. Which means that the last stanza shows the sincerity of the children's songs as they are like "a mighty wind" and "harmonious thunderings". But I think the bigger idea is that Blake is showing the hypocrisy of the "aged men, wise guardians of  the poor" because the men are only trying to make themselves feel better about their atrocious behaviors. As I remember, there was few orphanage during the 18th century that had good living conditions because the head of the orphanages took the donations and used  the money for themselves, which makes the "Grey-headed beadles" hypocrites as well. Blake cloaks this irony behind the children and try to portray what society believes it is doing 'for' the children.

"Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience)" reveals the irony with comparing the actual situation with that in heaven. The first line starts off by asking "Is this a holy thing to see...?" In other terms, "Is making children sing for us really a holy thing in the beautiful cathedral even though in reality the very children are suffering from sickness, disease, and maltreatment in the orphanages?" That's how I perceived the first stanza. Blake is pointing out the sickening hypocrisy of the wealthy upper class for trying to cover up their real intention of 'donating' to the orphanages, to lessen their guilt and sins. Therefore, the songs that the children are singing are far from "song of joy" because they toil under the very hypocrisy that the wealthy are feeding off of. The children as they grow older realize what they have suffered and their sun can never shine because the light has been smudged by the upper class. Their world will be ""eternal winter" because they will fail to find warmth or hope in the sinful world. When I was reading the last stanza, I immediately thought of heaven, but that means that the place where "Babe can never hunger" is not existent anywhere on earth. The grim view that only death can release the children into an eternal salvation of hope and dream shows how Blake perceives the world.

I don't know how well I analyzed Blake's poem, but I know that as I reread the poem over and over again, I was realizing various elements and relations that tied together. .