To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill'd with doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his Master's Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus'd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear.
A Skylark wounded in the wing,
A Cherubim does cease to sing.
The Game Cock clipp'd and arm'd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright.
Every Wolf's & Lion's howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul.
The wild deer, wand'ring here & there,
Keeps the Human Soul from Care.
The Lamb misus'd breeds public strife
And yet forgives the Butcher's Knife.
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that won't believe.
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belov'd by Men.
He who the Ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by Woman lov'd.
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spider's enmity.
He who torments the Chafer's sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night.
The Catterpillar on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mother's grief.
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly,
For the Last Judgement draweth nigh.
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar's Dog & Widow's Cat,
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer's song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envy's Foot.
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artist's Jealousy.
The Prince's Robes & Beggars' Rags
Are Toadstools on the Miser's Bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy & Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro' the World we safely go.
Joy & Woe are woven fine,
A Clothing for the Soul divine;
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The Babe is more than swadling Bands;
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made, & born were hands,
Every Farmer Understands.
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity.
This is caught by Females bright
And return'd to its own delight.
The Bleat, the Bark, Bellow & Roar
Are Waves that Beat on Heaven's Shore.
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of death.
The Beggar's Rags, fluttering in Air,
Does to Rags the Heavens tear.
The Soldier arm'd with Sword & Gun,
Palsied strikes the Summer's Sun.
The poor Man's Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Afric's Shore.
One Mite wrung from the Labrer's hands
Shall buy & sell the Miser's lands:
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole Nation sell & buy.
He who mocks the Infant's Faith
Shall be mock'd in Age & Death.
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the Infant's faith
Triumph's over Hell & Death.
The Child's Toys & the Old Man's Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons.
The Questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to Reply.
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out.
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesar's Laurel Crown.
Nought can deform the Human Race
Like the Armour's iron brace.
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow.
A Riddle or the Cricket's Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply.
The Emmet's Inch & Eagle's Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile.
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you Please.
If the Sun & Moon should doubt
They'd immediately Go out.
To be in a Passion you Good may do,
But no Good if a Passion is in you.
The Whore & Gambler, by the State
Licenc'd, build that Nation's Fate.
The Harlot's cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old England's winding Sheet.
The Winner's Shout, the Loser's Curse,
Dance before dead England's Hearse.
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet Delight.
Some ar Born to sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro' the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to Perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in the Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.
Background and Analysis of This Poem
William Blake's Auguries of Innocence is one of those poems that many readers know through its opening lines, even if they have never encountered the full work. It begins with a vision of vastness contained in smallness, asking us to see "a World in a Grain of Sand" and "Heaven in a Wild Flower". Yet the poem soon becomes much stranger, sharper and more morally demanding than those famous lines alone might suggest. The Morgan Library & Museum identifies the Pickering Manuscript as the sole source for several of Blake's poems, including Auguries of Innocence, and notes that the poems were probably composed between 1800 and 1804, with the manuscript itself likely created around 1807.
The title gives us a useful way in. An augury is an omen or sign, so the poem asks us to read the world as though everything in it is meaningful. For Blake, innocence is not ignorance. It is a form of spiritual vision, an ability to perceive connections that ordinary habit has dulled. A robin in a cage, a starving dog, a wounded skylark and a hunted hare are not merely unfortunate details from country life. They are signs of a disordered moral universe. Blake insists that cruelty to the small and defenceless is never small in its consequences.
This is one reason the poem moves with such startling speed. Blake leaps from animals to children, from beggars to kings, from light to darkness, from the human eye to the nature of God. The poem can feel like a string of proverbs, but these are not cosy sayings for a decorative calendar. They are little flares of judgement. Again and again, Blake links private conduct with public ruin. A dog starved at its master's gate is not simply a sad household scene; it predicts the collapse of the state. In Blake's imagination, the moral fabric of the universe is tightly woven, and no act of cruelty remains local.
The poem also belongs to Blake's wider lifelong challenge to social and religious complacency. His better-known Songs of Innocence and of Experience presents innocence and experience as "two contrary states of the human soul", and the Tate notes that Blake first published Songs of Innocence in 1789 and later issued the combined Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794. Auguries of Innocence is not part of that collection, but it clearly speaks the same spiritual language. It asks what happens when innocence is trapped, exploited, mocked or dismissed by the systems of experience: law, power, wealth, custom and cold respectability.
One of the poem's most arresting qualities is its refusal to separate vision from ethics. To see rightly is to respond rightly. Blake does not imagine spirituality as a private glow that allows a person to float above suffering. Instead, spiritual vision should make the suffering of animals, children and the poor impossible to ignore. The poem's famous opening, then, is not simply a pretty celebration of wonder. It is a demand for attention. If a whole world may be found in a grain of sand, then the smallest harm may also contain the outline of a larger injustice.
For modern readers, Auguries of Innocence can feel both ancient and urgent. Its proverb-like couplets sound as if they have been carved out of folk wisdom, yet their concern with animal cruelty, social inequality, spiritual blindness and political corruption remains painfully recognisable. Blake's gift is to make moral perception feel imaginative rather than dutiful. He does not ask us merely to behave better. He asks us to look harder, until the world becomes alive with consequence. The poem's challenge is simple to state and difficult to live: nothing is insignificant once it has been truly seen.
