The Lamb and The Tyger by William Blake: Analysis and Commentary

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

 The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?

         Dost thou know who made thee, 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed 

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice? 

         Little Lamb, who made thee?

         Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee;

         Little Lamb, I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb: 

He is meek & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name.

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.

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 seize 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?

“The Tyger” is one of the poems from William Blake’s Songs of Experience. It contrasts with its antithetical companion piece, “The Lamb” in Songs of Innocence. To understand fully both “The Lamb” and “The Tyger,” they should be read side by side, because each is opposed in the images, symbolism, and theme that it conveys and, for this reason, deepens and enriches its opposite’s meanings, as suggested by the companion poem.

In “The Lamb,” the speaker of the poem is obviously a child. (The etching that the poet created as an illustration to accompany this poem also shows its speaker to be a child, a young boy). He speaks as a child, in a lilting, singsong fashion, repeating the same questions over and over. He sees the lamb as “little,” like himself, and identifies with the animal as a fellow creature rather than as a beast of a different species. He also personifies the lamb, addressing the animal as if it were a person:

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee. . . ?

The lamb’s Maker is the one, the child assumes, who has directed the lamb’s innocent, simple, pastoral life—an existence that involves mostly eating in a pleasant habitat, “by the stream & o'er the mead.”

The lamb’s Creator, the child says, made it a delightful creature, giving it both “softest clothing wooly bright” and “a tender voice” that causes “all the vales [to] rejoice.” The description of the lamb is that, almost, of a living, breathing plush animal. This is the lamb as seen through the eyes of the child, through the eyes of innocence.

On a deeper level, the lamb, for the child, symbolizes Jesus Christ, who became a “little child,” making it possible for the speaker of the poem to identify with the baby Jesus:

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

Little Lamb I'll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb:

He is meek & he is mild,

He became a little child:

I a child & thou a lamb,

We are called by his name.

The innocent lamb, “meek and mild,” like both the child and nature’s Creator, who both “calls himself a Lamb” and “became a little child,” allows the child to experience a oneness with both nature (the lamb) and God (Jesus Christ). The child is one with the universe. In blessing the lamb, therefore, he blesses himself, nature, and its Creator, all of whom, together in the lamb, are made one. Of course, Jesus is referred to not only as a lamb but also as a lion (“the lion of the tribe of Judah”), and the same person who said he came in peace also said that he would return in judgment. However, the child is unaware of these other aspects of the Creator, just as he seems unaware of the more predatory aspects of nature.

For this knowledge and understanding, the child must become an adult. The vision of innocence must expand to encompass the vision of experience.

In “The Tyger,” Blake provides a snapshot, as it were, of one of God’s fiercest predators. It is important to observe that Blake does not attribute the tiger to a natural origin apart from God, as if the animal appeared as a result of a mindless evolutionary process. 

Rather, the tiger, in all its ferocity, was “framed” by “hand” that “dared” to “seize the fire” in which the tiger’s fiery eye had burned among the “distant deep” of heaven’s stars. Likewise, a “shoulder” was employed in the “art” of twisting “the sinews” of the tiger’s heart.

The predator’s creator was present when the animal’s heart began to beat, and it was the tiger’s Creator who, as a smith, operated the “hammer” and the ‘chain” and the “anvil” that were used to “forge” the animal’s very brain. The tiger is clearly very much, by conscious design, the creation of God, who has given the beast its fierce and predatory nature as much as he has shaped the correspondingly “fearful symmetry” of the great cat’s body, which is “burning bright/In the forests of the night.” That the dark forest was chosen as this creature’s habitat is further evidence within the poem that the animal’s fierce nature was intentional from the beginning, as it is a fitting—perhaps the only-truly fitting—environment for such a fearful beast.

What does the tiger’s “fearful symmetry” suggest about its creator? “Did he smile his work to see?” the speaker of the poem wonders, adding, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” The Judeo-Christian concept of God is that he is almighty, yes, but also a loving and good God. The mighty tiger’s form and nature seem to cast doubt upon the notion that God is benevolent, kind, and loving. Alternatively, it at least challenges readers to remember that divine ways and human ways are not the same and that there is a complexity to God that is beyond human reckoning, for God did also create the lamb. As nature itself demonstrates, God is obviously the author of polarities, of opposites, and, perhaps, at least as viewed from the human perspective, of contraries which, as Blake insists elsewhere, are necessary to progress.

“The Tyger” ends as it began, with the same questions as those with which it began, as if the existence of the fierce, predatory tiger suggest truths about its Creator that are too terrible for the speaker of the poem to accept. Doubts rise, but they seem to be repressed. Insight does not become knowledge; it is merely the catalyst for more and more doubt and fear. Perhaps it is best to ask the same questions again and again than to accept the answers that seem to arise.

Which is the true representation of God, the “meek and mild” Creator who made the lamb or the conscious artisan who crafted the fierce and predatory tiger? Neither is complete or, by itself, an accurate depiction of God, for God is not what he appears to human beings, either as they envision him through childhood’s innocence or adulthood’s experience. He is, instead, both/and and neither/nor. However, the recognition of such complexity, which arises from the mental, emotional, and spiritual shock, of an awareness of the conflicting polarities, or contraries, within one’s own view of nature and God, may be the beginning of a wisdom that knows, at least, what God is not.

By accepting these antitheses, the opposites themselves are not reconciled, but the whole idea that they must be reconciled is transcended in the acceptance of a transcendent God who is beyond innocence and experience and beyond all other polarities that mark the boundaries of human understanding. Thus, contraries make progress in understanding oneself, one’s world, and one’s place in one’s world possible.