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?”