Religion

The Tyger

by William Blake 1757–1827

From Songs Of Experience

Religion

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 and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and 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 watered 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?

✦ ✦ ✦

Blake’s most famous lyric asks whether the God who made the gentle Lamb could also forge the Tyger. Its hammering, forge-loud questions never receive an answer — the poem holds creation’s terror and its beauty in the same awed breath.

MLA

Blake, William. “The Tyger.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/blake/30/.

Chicago

Blake, William. “The Tyger.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/blake/30/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

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