page_title: Notebook of William Blake
section_title: Poems of 1793
hierarchical_section_title: Notebook of William Blake / Poems of 1793
caption_attribution_description: English: Blake manuscript - Notebook 14 - Silent Silent Night
context_page_description: The Notebook of William Blake was used by William Blake as a commonplace book from c. 1787 to 1818.
context_section_description: The section of c. 1793 contains 63 poems that include drafts versions of 16 poems entered the collection of Songs of Experience, which have been placed here in the following order:
  Some of these drafts are significantly different from their last versions, for example "Infant Sorrow" of the Notebook is much more expanded and composed of nine quatrains instead of two that were chosen for the Songs of Experience. Also it is interesting to compare the most famous Blake's poem "The Tyger" with its two earlier Notebook versions (see: "The Tyger", 1st draft and 2nd draft).
  The genre of most of the poems of this section can be defined as Songs and Ballads. Some of them reflect the political and social climate of that time:
  ✶✶✶
  Why should I care for the men of thames
  
  Or the cheating waves of charterd streams
  
  Or shrink at the little blasts of fear
  
  That the hireling blows into my ear
  
  Tho born on the cheating banks of Thames
  
  Tho his waters bathed my infant limbs
  
  The Ohio shall wash his stains from me
  
  I was born a slave but I go to be free
  ✶✶✶
  Silent Silent Night
  
  Quench the holy light
  
  Of thy torches bright
  
  For possessd of Day
  
  Thousand spirits stray
  
  That sweet joys betray
  
  Why should joys be sweet
  
  Used with deceit
  
  Nor with sorrows meet
  
  But an honest joy
  
  Does itself destroy
  
  For a harlot coy
  Some other of these poems rather belong to the genre of Satiric verses and epigrams, like the following:
  Motto to the Songs of Innocence and of Experience
  The Good are attracted by Mens perceptions
  And Think not for themselves
  Till Experience teaches them to catch
  And to cage the Fairies and Elves
  
  And then the Knave begins to snarl
  
  And the Hypocrite to howl
  
  And all his good Friends shew their private ends
  
  And the Eagle is known from the Owl
  This motto, which was never engraved by Blake, is not found in any copy of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
caption: "Silent, Silent Night...", p.113 rev
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