Infant Sorrow. Songs of Experience. William Blake. 1908. The Poetical Works

William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908.

Songs of Experience

Infant Sorrow


MY 1 mother groan’d, my father wept,
Into the dangerous world I leapt;
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my father’s hands,	5
Striving against my swaddling-bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother’s breast.

Note 1. Infant Sorrow] Cp. the much fuller form of this poem in the Rossetti MS. (p. 115). [back]