The Blossom

The Blossom is a Song of Innocence that explicitly focuses on sexual awakening, making it a useful poem to use should a question on love or sexuality come up in the exam. It also tells us a lot about what Blake believed to be the nature of innocence.

The Blossom

Merry Merry Sparrow

Under leaves so green

A happy Blossom

Sees you swift as arrow

Seek your cradle narrow

Near my Bosom.

Pretty Pretty Robin

Under leaves so green

A happy Blossom

Hears you sobbing sobbing

Pretty Pretty Robin

Near my Bosom.

Form & Structure

The poem consists of two sestets (six-line stanzas), each composed of a regular ABCAAC rhyme scheme, giving them a rigid structure, suggesting that nature is indifferent and unchanging to human conventions. The rhythm alternates between trochaic dimeter and trimester, echoing children’s rhymes. The repetition of patterns highlights the contrast between the two birds, despite the speaker not recognising this.

Because the speaker receives no response from the blossom, the poem takes the form of a monologue, demonstrating that this aspect of nature is impersonal, unlike the paganist beliefs of nature typical of Romantic poetry. Instead, in the material world there is no vital personality or feeling.

Stanza One

The repetition of “Merry Merry” and “Under leaves so green” demonstrates the simplistic and childish nature of the innocent speaker.

The “Sparrow” is associated with carefree joie de vivre and also a symbol for nature. In the Bible, Jesus stated how not even the insignificant death of a sparrow goes unnoticed.

The “happy blossom” represents fragility, and thereby the fragility of innocence, although it also demonstrates the naivety of innocence. It is also signifies the time of Spring and its light-heartedness. Blake is suggesting that the tenderness and fragility of the blossom provides solace for two different human aspects of experience.

In line with the theme of sexual awakening, the “swift” “arrow” is phallic imagery, whereas the “cradle narrow” is vaginal.

The repetition of “Near my Bosom” indicates the nurturing and secure nature of the speaker, suggesting a maternal instinct, and represents a focus on erogenous breasts.

Stanza Two

The repetition of the first two lines in the second stanza, with the exception of turning “Merry Merry” into “Pretty Pretty” unifies the sparrow and robin as symbols of nature, and creating a harmony between nature, creatures and humankind, but also demonstrates the ignorant innocent nature of the speaker in generalising the two creatures despite their differences.

The repetition of “sobbing sobbing” highlights the differences between the sparrow and the robin. In between the two stanzas, it is insinuated that a sexual act has taken place. From this, the sparrow has gained sexual experience while the robin is left “sobbing” from a broken heart.

The “Robin” is usually associated with friendliness and compassion. According to tradition, the robin tried to remove a thorn from the crown of thorns on Jesus’ head while he was crucified. A drop of blood fell from the thorn onto the robin’s breast, and this has remained a symbol of compassion.

In his Proverbs of Hell, Blake wrote:

“Excess of sorrow laughs.

Excess of joy weeps.”

This seems to suggest a cyclical nature of emotions, in line with the belief of Levi-Strauss that contraries are interdependent by the very fact of their opposition. In regards to this specific quote from Blake, any human feeling when over-exerted becomes its opposition; these contraries blur rather than maintaining a stark divide. So once again, this poem uses excesses of emotions created from sexual experience to demonstrate the need for both innocence and experience. Should someone stay in innocence, they stay in the naivety of the speaker of this poem.

To be honest, I’ve probably over-analysed this poem to death so do not feel forced to remember every single point I’ve made in this section, but should love come up, so long as you intertwine your analysis with the theme of the two contrary states, this is a good poem to discuss!