It was fitting that in 1794, when Blake uttered his prophecy of things to come in _Europe_, he should also gather together his _Songs of Experience_, and engrave them for the joy of posterity.
_The Little Girl Lost_ and _The Little Girl Found_ bring together better than any perhaps the two contrary states of innocence and experience.
Lyca, being innocent and only seven summers old, wandered, allured by the wild birds' song. She is lost but not dismayed. Falling asleep, the beasts of prey come around her and minister to her, and finally convey her tenderly to a cave.
Then her parents, experienced but not innocent, arise and seek her. They pass through all the sufferings, sorrows, sighings, of this waste howling wilderness, buying the experience that almost kills them, till in terror they find Lyca among the wild beasts. But beholding Lyca they learn her secret, and
"To this day they dwell In a lonely dell: Nor fear the wolfish howl Nor the lion's growl."
_The Clod and the Pebble_ give the two contrary states of love. The clod proclaims the love that forgets itself in ministering to others; the pebble the love that would bind and devour all others, making them contribute to its own delight.
_A Poison Tree_ shows how repressed things secrete poison.
"I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow."
The repressed anger ended in murder. Blake was sure that any passion repressed was equally fatal.
_The Schoolboy_ gives the miserable experience that is thrust upon us all through the blind cruelty of those who would educate us. This experience is so contrary that nothing could be more calculated to crush native innocence, joy, and spring.
"O! father and mother, if buds are nipped And blossoms blown away, And if the tender plants are stripped Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care's dismay, How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear? Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear?"
How indeed? The question is to parents, schoolmasters, professors, priests. The conditions for young lives are created by those who would strangle life. Yet when experience has been its most contrary, even nailing its victim to a cross, just there is deliverance.