C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Tiger

From ‘Songs of Experience’

TIGER! Tiger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burned that fire within thine eyes?

On what wings dared he aspire?

What the hand dared seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

When thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

What the hammer, what the chain,

Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?