The Tyger
Two minutes in the forests of the night — firefly embers between the trunks, a tiger moving through moonlit grass, a furnace burning in the dark rock, meteors falling across the sky, and the great cat walking away into the black.
The words
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 spearsAnd 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?
What to listen for
Twenty-four lines, and almost every one of them is a question. Blake never answers a single one. That is the whole trick of the poem: it hands the wondering to you and then walks off into the dark.
The middle verses stop describing the tiger and start describing a workshop — hammer, chain, furnace, anvil, a dread grasp. Blake was an engraver who worked all day with fire and metal, so when he imagines something being made, he imagines a forge. The tiger is not born in this poem. It is manufactured.
Then the question children always feel before they can explain it: did he who made the Lamb make thee? Blake had already written a gentle poem called The Lamb. This is its twin. The same maker made the soft thing and the terrifying thing, and the poem simply asks how that can be true.
Read it aloud and listen to the beat — four strong stresses a line, like a hammer. It is a poem you can pound on a table.
Public domain. Reading and film made for Planet Neverland.