“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?”—William Blake, “
The Schoolboy,” from
Songs of Experience (1794)
I had a tough time selecting the image accompanying this post. You see, when I used Google Image to search for the appropriate youngster or group of youngsters to illustrate
William Blake’s point, the results I saw, overwhelmingly, were diligent, even
happy young scholars toiling away the summer hours.
Needless to say, this was not the memory I had of young people forced to stay cooped up in rooms on some of the hottest days of the year while their friends were going to the Jersey Shore.
In fact, the one face that
did illustrate the anguish and misery Blake described was the poet's. He looks as if he’d been denied the chance to experience the joys of nature, doesn’t he?
“Deceit
to secrecy confin'd,
