| William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908. | | | | Songs of Experience | | Holy Thursday |
| | | IS 1 this a holy thing to see | |
| In a rich and fruitful land, | |
| Babes reduc’d to misery, | |
| Fed with cold and usurous hand? | |
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| Is that trembling cry a song? | 5 |
| Can it be a song of joy? | |
| And so many children poor? | |
| It is a land of poverty! | |
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| And their sun does never shine, | |
| And their fields are bleak and bare, | 10 |
| And their ways are fill’d with thorns: | |
| It is eternal winter there. | |
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| For where’er the sun does shine, | |
| And where’er the rain does fall, | |
| Babe can never hunger there, | 15 |
| Nor poverty the mind appal. | |
| | | Note 1. Holy Thursday] 7 And so great a number poor MS. 8, 12 It is] ’Tis MS. 13 For] But MS.< [back] | | |
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