William Blake, 1527-1827

From Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Blake’s hand-coloured edition

• The Tyger
•  
• Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
• In the forests of the night,
• What immortal hand or eye
• Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
•  
• In what distant deeps or skies
• Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
• On what wings dare he aspire?
• What the hand dare sieze the fire?
•  
• And what shoulder, & what art,
• Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
• And when thy heart began to beat,
• What dread hand? & what dread feet?
•  
• What the hammer? what the chain?
• In what furnace was thy brain?
• What the anvil? what dread grasp
• Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
•  
• When the stars threw down their spears,
• And water’d heaven with their tears,
• Did he smile his work to see?
• Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
•  
• Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
• In the forests of the night,
• What immortal hand or eye
• Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?