Nurses song experience. William Blake 2022-10-30

Nurse's Song (Songs of Experience) Poem Summary and Analysis

Significant repetition does exist, however, between the two poems. For instance, in the first 'Nurse's Song' he tells how children play and are allowed to go on playing until the light fades and it is time to go to bed. And your winter and night in disguise. They think of themselves as part of nature, and cannot bear the thought of abandoning their play while birds and sheep still frolic in the sky and on the hills, for the children share the innocence and unselfconscious spontaneity of these natural creatures. Rather than taking place in a flat area, this choice of occurrence offers a physical elevation to mimic the rise of happy emotions the children are experiencing.

Nurse's Song by William Blake

It has no purpose as she says: " Your spring and your day are wasted in play. They also approach the world with a cheerful optimism, focusing not on the impending nightfall but on the last drops of daylight that surely can be eked out of the evening. The nurse hears and is happy, but exists in that happiness in a much calmer fashion than the children—because of the children. Then the speaker berates the children once they come home, telling them that their days are wasted in play and their nights in disguise: "in disguise" may refer to playing along or going along with society by accepting commonly held perspectives and hopes. Structure The poem comprises four Language and Imagery The voice is that of the Nurse; an idealised mouthpiece of contentment.

Nurse's Song of Experience Analysis

But in Songs of Experience the children are wrapped up in silence. To show the extent of this destruction Blake places in the Songs of Experience certain poems which give poignant contrast to poems which appear in the Songs of Innocence. Their insights then reflect who they are and provide a very different viewpoint about night and day. They are what brings her joy just by being near their joy and laughter. The dewy night seems to express a devitalizing and degenerate element. The Nurse of 'Experience': In the Songs of Innocence the nurse derives pleasure and tranquillity from the scene of the playing innocent children. When the adult sees the stillness of dew, to him or her, the time has come to go home.

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Both poems feature adult narrators describing children at play. The language within this stanza shifts into something simpler than what the reader encountered in the first stanza and that change is reasonable as the nurse is conversing directly with the children rather than in open narrative form. A similar innocence characterizes the pleasure the adult nurse takes in watching her charges play. An explanation that seems just as likely—maybe more so—is that the children are interpreting the situation differently. The Nurse's Song of Innocence WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill , My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. The nurse finds happiness in the sounds and glee of the children, and he or she permits them to continue playing when they request more time before having to return home.

In Nurse's Song of Experience, by William Blake, what repetition is used and to what effect?

In the two Blake poems you ask about, no significant repetition occurs within each poem itself. Their happiness inspires in her a feeling of peace, and their desire to prolong their own delight is one she readily indulges. It may be so. Perhaps the children are lying to get their way, and if this scenario were the case, it would speak to the limitless reach of children to attain something that they desire, like creating a tall-tale for the sake of playing a little longer. The children, however, are fixated on other details that do not indicate that the day is gone. The difference of the two poems lies in the emotions of the different speakers in relation to the children playing and coming home. She is hostile and hence insensitive to innocence.

Nurse's Song: by William Blake

The nurse yields to their pleas, and the children shout and laugh with joy while the hills echo their gladness. In this "Nurse's Song," by contrast, the nurse takes no such pleasure in childhood innocence. This variation not only highlights that adults are different, maybe even incapable of embracing that same unabashed joy that children can exude, but it brings to light the concept that an adult does not need to showcase his or her happiness, in the same manner, to appreciate and share in that unabashed joy. She feels sorry for the lost days of infantine enthusiasm, and she feels jealous of the children. It can be inferred from that detail that a theme within the poem is that a person must push the limits, like a child, to find the most vivid happiness available.

Songs of Innocence and Experience “The Nurse’s Song” Summary & Analysis

They ask to play on till bedtime, for as long as the light lasts. She asks the children to turn back home and stop playing as the sun has set and the night is damp with dew. In other words, the situation of the children is identical. Commentary This is a poem of affinities and correspondences. From her angle of view, life is aimless, a useless waste of time in childhood and in old age, a shame. She keeps a constant watch over the children and her instincts reflect her disposition. Their happiness persists unabashed and uninhibited, and without shame the children plead for permission to continue in it.

Nurses Song (Experience) by William Blake

The adults watch over the children: in the first poem as they play on the green and on the hill, in the second poem on the green and on the dale. Instead, she seems to resent the way the children remind her of her own youth and even to feel that the children's play is a waste of time and a form of deception. There is no suggestion of alienation, either between children and adults or between man and nature, and even the dark certainty of nightfall is tempered by the promise of resuming play in the morning. Nurse's Song Summary: The various reactions of the nurse are depicted in 'Nurse's Song' wherein she observes the children bring to her a nostalgic recollection of her own childhood when she too used to frolic. Like him, her consideration is appeared by leaving the youngsters alone, and they are her wellspring of enjoyment and commendation. The nurse suspects secrecy and indecency in the activities going on in the field and attaches some colour of immorality to the sports.

Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence) Poem Summary and Analysis

The second speaker finds no joy or contentment in the playing children, as the first speaker does. The sounds and games of the children harmonize with a busy world of sheep and birds. The sun going down in the fifth line brings no promise of rising again. This faithful and loyal medical attendant is an exceptionally legitimate individual, who thinks that children waste precious time in playing and in acting charades when they might be occupied with their duties, or engaged in improving their minds. But the second speaker writes: My face turns green and pale. The diction of the poem itself suggests the pervading gravity and the discoloured background.

William Blake

And, one critic says that when she thinks of the shocking things which she was tempted to do in her youth before she learned to be reasonable and earnest, her face turns pale and green with sorrow. The 'voices of children' heard in Songs of Innocence is a subdued 'whispering' in the poem here. Blake often deals with perceptions. But this poem is obviously contrasted with the earlier poem of the same title. The poem demonstrates the idea that the same situation can be perceived in different ways.