Blake's "The Clod & the Pebble" - Innocence Vs Experience.

Love seeketh not Itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care;

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

So sang a little glob of Clay,

Trodden with the cattles feet:

But a Pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight;

Joys in anothers loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.

William Blake (1757-1827)

The above truly unique and huge in imagery love poem belongs to the sequence of poems Songs of vex, which was write as a response to the Songs of Innocence.

In combination, these 2 groups of poems represent the manhood as it is envisioned by what Blake calls two contrary states of the humanity soul. As it is implied by the name of these poems, Songs of Innocence refer to the naive, saturated and guileless feelings we all have during our childhood and youth years, whereas the Songs of Experience constitute the voice of logic, the experience gained through the hardships and ordeals during the advanced years in ones life. The voice of experience warns the innocent against the pain, unjustness and cruelty of life and advises cautiousness.

What is unique in this poem is that the two contrary visions are presented evenly in one poem. The bunch - the innocent and altruistic love - and the Pebble - the selfish and self-absorbed feeling - are given precisely the same extent in the poem to give their message to the reader and let them judge for themselves. It is interesting to note the existence of two separate and clear-cut entities even from the title of the poem. The reader is about to read a poem about the clod and the pebble and not about...

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