I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.
But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn.
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.
Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour,
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learnings bower,
Worn thro' with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy,
Sit in a cage and sing.
How can a child when fears annoy.
But droop his tender wing.
And forget his youthful spring.
O! father & mother. if buds are nip'd,
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'd
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay.
How shall the summer arise in joy.
Or the summer fruits appear.
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy
Or bless the mellowing year.
When the blasts of winter appear.
From
: www.oldpoetry.com
The
poem “ The School Boy” was written by William Blake, it is part of his “ Songs
of Innocence” published in 1789.
In
the poem the poet talks about a child that wakes up in the morning and all the
hapiness he feels disapears when he realizes that he has to go to school.
The
main theme is the sorrow that the boy feels having to go to school, when he
wants to enjoy summer. He has the obligation to go to a close space, but he
wants to go outside.
Another
theme is nature, the freedom that it represents for the boy and the opression
of the class. This repression is also represented by the boy´s parents who
force him to go there.
It
is written in first person, the word “I” is quite present in the poem and
refers to Blake himself.
In
my opinion, the author, William Blake, when he wrote the poem as an adult, he
still remembered an experience of his childhood. He wrote the poem from a
child´s viewpoint.
He
wrote his child feelings in a summer morning and in a way, he complaint to his
parents. Maybe, now he as an adult has voice and he uses it, because if you are
a child everybody ignores you.
Taking
into account that this book is written for children, Blake knows that children
may feel in the same way as him and can help them.
According
to the tone,the poem can be divided in three parts:
- 1st stanza,
when the child wakes up and is happy
- 2nd and
3rd when he feels sorrows because he cannot enjoy
- the
rest, it is a kind of claim directed to the reader in general or to his parents
So,
the poem starts in a very positive way, but this only happens in the beginning.
Then, it changes radically and the tone is very pesimistic. We are aware of the
boy´s feelings, he passes from joy to sorrow.
The
poem is structured in 6 stanzas, with 5 lines each one.
The
rhyme is : 1st line with 3rd , and 2nd with
4th and 5th (ababb).The lines are no longer
than 10 syllables, they vary between 6 to 10.
There
are some key images present in the poem.
The
first I have found and I think is central in the poem, is the image of the
birds.Blake uses the bird as if it was the child himself. The birds sing
happily when they are free, but if they are in a cage they cannot do it the
same way. In the same way the boy feels, he is imprisoned at school.
Another
image is the summer time, the boy sees summer as a way of being free, but
instead of being outside, he is in a class. For him it is winter, because he
cannot enjoy the good weather as nature does in summer.
This
images serve to contrast the reality of the boy and his real desires.
There
are also other features as the continuous contrast between outside-inside,
summer-winter,joy-sorrow,...
Some
exclamatios :O! Ah! that contribute to create the tone of sorrow of the
boy.
And
something important in the poem are the rethorical questions that are half of
the poem. The boy aks those questions trying to get answers, because he does
not understand why he has to go to school. He wants an answer or maybe a
solution to it.
When
I first read the poem I identified with the school boy, and I think that
everyone can feel the same way. You get up in the morning and you are happy,
but then you remember that you have to go to school and it is a very sad
feeling like that.
You
are not able to do what you want , you have to go to school, and there you
don´t pay very much attention to the lessons.Time passes very slow and the
class never ends.
And
this feeling may be worst if the classes are in summer.
When
this happens who do you blame for? Your parents, as the boy does.
So,
in general this is a poem that can be read and understood easily, if you are a
child or ever if you are older.
