A Little Boy Lost

A Little Boy Lost the Poem

"A little boy lost" is a poem of the Songs of Experience series created in 1794 after the Songs of Innocence (1789) by the poet named William Blake. The "The Little Boy Found" responds to the poems initial conversation, about . The poem focuses on the theme of religious persecution. A boy is burned for his ego and leads to the poem "The Little Boy Lost" who follows a wisp and then is found by God in the prelude of "The Little Boy Found".

The Poem

Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.

'And, Father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.'

The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the priestly care.

And standing on the altar high,
'Lo, what a fiend is here! said he:
'One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy mystery.'

The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,

And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such thing done on Albion's shore?

Analysis of Poem

In this poem, the titular boy is persecuted because he questions the religious teaching that one should love God more than anything else, as the boy loves nature and his family equally as much as God. The priest, embodying these Church teachings, hears the boy's questioning of doctrine, and is angered, punishing the boy by burning him at the stake, as a punishment for heresy. As the poem progresses, the father and family weep for the boy. The poem focuses on the corrupt punishment of the innocent by the dangerous teachings of the Church, and criticises the view held by Blake's society, that the Church was virtuous and good, when in fact it allowed exploitation and brutality.

Background

When the poem was first published, critics thought it to be annoying and difficult. What makes the poem confusing is that the boy himself is confused. A commentator thought the boy is just trying to compare the divine of man to God and that we can all equally love as God loves us. The poems title hints of what this poem is about, even symbolically. Blake wanted his poems to be written for the common man. The main point Blake was trying to make was that young innocence has a grasp on religion and its corruption in the poem and the real world and within this message everyone who thinks otherwise shall burn for it.

Structure

This poem is split up into six quatrains and all are in iambic tetrameter. The first two quatrains are about the little boy speaking of love and what he thinks religion should be. The next quatrain is about the priest hearing the boy question God and his faith and then makes the boy a tyrant to show the public his treason. As the poem moves the boys innocence dissipates. When you look at the photo above you can see there are two numbers one on the inside of the outline and one on the outside. The first number is the sequence of the songs of innocence and then the outer is the songs of Experience. A man who studies blakes shorter poems suggests that the reader does not understand the full meaning of stanza one until you read stanza two and when reading the second stanza the reader can take hold of what the child is trying to state, which is universal love and not self-love that he is being condemned for.