The Tyger by William Blake | Poetry Foundation The Tyger by William Blake In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Discover this poem's context and related poetry, articles, and media.

Poet Biography In his Life of William Blake (1863) Alexander Gilchrist warned his readers that Blake "neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work'y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself 'a divine child,' whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and the earth." Yet Blake himself believed that his writings were of national importance and that they could be understood by a majority of men. Far from being an isolated mystic, Blake lived and worked in the teeming metropolis of London at a time of great social and political change that profoundly influenced his writing. After the peace established in 1762, the British Empire seemed secure, but the storm wave begun with the American Revolution in 1775 and the French Revolution in 1789 changed forever the way men looked at their relationship to the state and to the established church. Poet, painter, and engraver,...

Biweekly updates of poetry and feature stories Press Releases A preview of the upcoming issue Poem of the day A daily email with a featured poem Events Chicago-area and Poetry Foundation events Children's Events SparkNotes: Songs of Innocence and Experience: “The Tyger” Songs of Innocence and Experience William Blake In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Summary The poem begins with the speaker asking a fearsome tiger what kind of divine being could have created it: “What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame they fearful symmetry?” Each subsequent stanza contains further questions, all of which refine this first one. From what part of the cosmos could the tiger’s fiery eyes have come, and who would have dared to handle that fire? What sort of physical presence, and what kind of dark craftsmanship, would have been required to “twist the sinews” of the tiger’s heart? The speaker wonders how, once that horrible heart “began to beat,” its creator would have had the courage to continue the job. Comparing the creator to a blacksmith, he ponders about the anvil and the furnace that the project would have required and the smith who could have wielded them. And when the job was done, the speaker wonders, how would the creator have felt? “Did he smile his work to see?” Could this possibly be the same being who made the lamb? Form The poem is comprised of six quatrains in rhymed couplets. The meter is regular and rhythmic, its hammering beat suggestive of the smithy that is the poem’s central image.

The simplicity and neat proportions of the poems form perfectly suit its regular structure, in which a string of questions all contribute to the articulation of a single, central idea. Commentary The opening question enacts what will be the single dramatic gesture of the poem, and each subsequent stanza elaborates on this conception. Blake is building on the conventional idea that nature, like a work of art, must in some way contain a reflection of its creator. The tiger is strikingly beautiful yet also horrific in its capacity for violence. What kind of a God, then, could or would design such a terrifying beast as the tiger? In more general terms, what does the undeniable existence of evil and violence in the world tell us about the nature of God, and what does it mean to live in a world where a being can at once contain both beauty and horror? The tiger initially appears as a strikingly sensuous image. However, as the poem progresses, it takes on a symbolic character, and comes to embody the spiritual and moral problem the poem explores: perfectly beautiful and yet perfectly destructive, Blake’s tiger becomes the symbolic center for an investigation into the presence of evil in the world.

Since the tiger’s remarkable nature exists both in physical and moral terms, the speaker’s questions about its origin must also encompass both physical and moral dimensions. The poem’s series of questions repeatedly ask what sort of physical creative capacity the “fearful symmetry” of the tiger bespeaks; assumedly only a very strong and powerful being could be capable of such a creation. The smithy represents a traditional image of artistic creation; here Blake applies it to the divine creation of the natural world. The “forging” of the tiger suggests a very physical, laborious, and deliberate kind of making; it emphasizes the awesome physical presence of the tiger and precludes the idea that such a creation could have been in any way accidentally or haphazardly produced. It also continues from the first description of the tiger the imagery of fire with its simultaneous connotations of creation, purification, and destruction. The speaker stands in awe of the tiger as a sheer physical and aesthetic achievement, even as he recoils in horror from the moral implications of such a creation; for the poem addresses not only the question of who could make such a creature as the tiger, but who would perform this act.

This is a question of creative responsibility and of will, and the poet carefully includes this moral question with the consideration of physical power. Note, in the third stanza, the parallelism of “shoulder” and “art,” as well as the fact that it is not just the body but also the “heart” of the tiger that is being forged. The repeated use of word the “dare” to replace the “could” of the first stanza introduces a dimension of aspiration and willfulness into the sheer might of the creative act. The reference to the lamb in the penultimate stanza reminds the reader that a tiger and a lamb have been created by the same God, and raises questions about the implications of this. It also invites a contrast between the perspectives of “experience” and “innocence” represented here and in the poem “The Lamb.” “The Tyger” consists entirely of unanswered questions, and the poet leaves us to awe at the complexity of creation, the sheer magnitude of God’s power, and the inscrutability of divine will.

The perspective of experience in this poem involves a sophisticated acknowledgment of what is unexplainable in the universe, presenting evil as the prime example of something that cannot be denied, but will not withstand facile explanation, either. The open awe of “The Tyger” contrasts with the easy confidence, in “The Lamb,” of a child’s innocent faith in a benevolent universe. More Help The Tyger by William Blake a Pet and Animal Poem at FamilyPets Net the Home of Family Pets and Animals. In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies, Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? and what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil ? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? The Tyger by William Blake - Your Daily Poem In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? This poem is in the public domain.

Post New Comment: transitions: Today,tigers are severely threatened with extinction from poachers, I treasure this poem and hope the beautiful tiger will always be 'burning bright' ~ right before our eyes and not in zoos or, worse yet, museums. Posted 05/25/2015 11:15 AM pwilliam: I believe in Blake's time and place "symmetry" would have been pronounced "sim eh TRY" rather than sim eh TREE". P.Williams Posted 05/25/2015 08:27 AM KevinArnold: Yes, Blake always had that theological edge, one that powers the penultimate stanza: When the stars threw down their spears,/ And water'd heaven with their tears,/ Did he smile his work to see?/ Did he who made the Lamb make thee?// Posted 05/25/2015 08:16 AM Katrina: I admire the way William Blake rises above rhyming jingles - even if only for one line. Ho else could he do justice to a tyger?

Posted 05/25/2015 04:33 AM I've always loved this one. Posted 05/24/2015 06:18 AM Contents of this web site and all original text and images therein are copyright © by Your Daily Poem. All rights reserved. The material on this site may not be copied, reproduced, downloaded, distributed, transmitted, stored, altered, adapted, or otherwise used in any way without the express written permission of the owner. The Tyger Poem by William Blake - Poem Hunter The Tyger Poem by William Blake - Poem Hunter The Tyger - Poem by William Blake Autoplay next video In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil?

what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? (12/13/2016 10:08:00 AM) tom allport to me this poem is full of metaphors and is way ahead of its time (Report) Reply (11/21/2016 9:26:00 AM) Classic Good to read the old school poems again. I have always loved this line: In what furnace was thy brain? (Report) Reply Indira Renganathan (10/28/2016 4:09:00 AM) Even I still wonder How God can make lamb as well as tiger...on whom does He have mercy...a big question..

this is a famous Blake-poem...I like it- 10 (Report) Reply Ratnakar Mandlik (10/12/2016 10:51:00 PM) An awesome poem portraying the tiger, the king of forests and it's dreadful eyes and shape. Thanks for sharing it here. (Report) Reply Dipankar Sadhukhan (10/7/2016 3:53:00 AM) Q. Show how The Lamb and The Tyger present the contrary states of human soul. [Or] How does Blake blend childlike innocence with adult wisdom in The Tyger and The Lamb? Among the precursors of English romanticism William Blake presented his poetical genius in a mystical pattern with symbolic overtones. His mysticism is rooted in the doctrine of Swendenberg and Bhome. Such mystical insights blended with romantic imagination found full display in the two contrasting poetical collections - Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence. The Tyger represents the former and 'The Lamb' represents the latter poetical collection. These two poems celebrate two contrary states of human mind and soul - one of innocence and the other of experience.

The Lamb essentially celebrates divine identity of a little child as well as the lamb. The child puts several questions before the lamb regarding its origin and creation. Jesus Christ declares Himself to be a lamb in the New Testament of the English Bible. Blake wonderfully works out his mystical pattern of poetical thought while answering the divine identity of the lamb. And this is done through the chain of symbols. Like the other romantics, Blake often uses the objects of nature as symbols to signify the spiritual identity. His poem is spoken by a mere child. The 'obstinate questionings' of the little child are answered in essentially paradoxical and ambiguous manner. The child is very much conscious of its origins and its spiritual affinity with Christ. The Tyger illustrates absolute autocracy and tyrannical character of powerful monarch. It is indeed the king of the nocturnal forest. Its ferocity is represented by its variegated colours, wonderful symmetry and the terrorizing capacity. Its main food is the little lamb. Thus in the ecological chain, the tyger is the eater of the innocent animal just as in human society an autocratic king dominates over his subjects. Blake puts several strange questions regarding the creation of such a 'fearful symmetry'.

The immortal hand of God is all behind the design of its creation. The fire in the eyes of the tyger indicates the ire or anger. Again here is a distant allusion to the stealing of fire by the epic hero Prometheus found as in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. Shelley being a poet of independent spirit wrote Prometheus Unbound only to give freedom to Prometheus. Blake describes the physical structure of the tyger in a form of series of questions. The heart of the tyger is made of twisted sinews. The hands and feet are dreadful. Thus to bring out the inward and outward ferocity and symmetry, Blake describes the process of its creation as if in the manner of a blacksmith's workshop. Here God, the creator is the Blacksmith and Blake is the omniscient narrator. During the process of its creation the heavenly bodies in the form of 'stars' throw down their spears in agony and fear. Then Blake puts a sado-masochistic expression regarding the creation. God Himself was puzzled and threatened by appearance of such a fearful creature. It is a matter of irony that the same compassionate God created both the tyger and the lamb in His own hands though they are contrasting ones.

In both the poems Blake employs swedish mysticism to convey his symbolical ideas. He ransacks the Bible, the scriptures and several mythologies to clarify the Identities of the tyger and the lamb. After Blake the tyger- image of Jesus Christ was once again applied in the twentieth century by T.S. Eliot in his Gerontion. Even W.B. Yeats, the mystical leader of the Symbolism Movement in literature, also represented a vision of strange looking beast in The Second Coming. Christ's second coming is signified by the sudden arrival of such a beast. Blake's tyger represents the tyrannical variety of monarchy as well as the spiritual boldness. And its counterpart the lamb represents the innocent brightness, childlike simplicity and divine purity of a little child. In that sense two poems as well as the two poetical collections are contrasting to each other as well as complimentary to each other. (Report) Reply Enoch John (4/25/2016 4:17:00 PM) i was first introduced to this ''Tyger'' in my first year at college when the Irish monk Br Leonard entered the classroom reciting verses of this great poem.It had a most profound effect on me.

(Report) Reply The Tyger - Poem by William Blake The Tyger by William Blake Tyger Tyger. burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye. Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat. What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears And watered heaven with their tears: Did he smile His work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? William Blake: The Tyger In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art. Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright POEM: The Tyger by William Blake In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Search | Poetry Foundation Poetry Foundation Search results for the keyword 'the tyger' 1 to 20 of 26 Results The Tyger By William Blake Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what... poem Myth of the Blaze By George Oppen night – sky bird’s world to know to know in my life to know what I have said to myself the dark... Audio By William Blake (read by Michael Stuhlbarg) Poem Sampler By The Editors Tracing the full scope of his visionary poetry, from the pastoral to the prophetic Best known in his time as a painter and engraver, William Blake is now known as a major visionary poet... Essay By Kathleen Rooney How do we see ourselves in animals? A creature is a creation; if something is created, then we are inclined to wonder By whom, if anyone?, and...

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The poetry... Essay on Children's Poetry By Susan Hutton An appreciation of the tongue-twisting and incantatory mix in a new anthology of children’s poetry. “When I was eight,” says poet and anthologist Elise Paschen, “my parents gave me a poetry anthology. There was a... Animal Poems | Academy of American Poets Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization. poem index Baby Tortoise D. H. Lawrence, 1885 - 1930 You know what it is to be born alone, Baby tortoise! The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell, Not yet awake, And remain lapsed on earth, Not quite alive. A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open Like some iron door; To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base And reach your skinny neck And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage, Alone, small insect, Tiny bright-eye, Slow one. To take your first solitary bite And move on your slow, solitary hunt. Your bright, dark little eye, Your eye of a dark disturbed night, Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise, So indomitable. No one ever heard you complain. You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward. Wither away, small bird? Rather like a baby working its limbs, Except that you make slow, ageless progress And a baby makes none. The touch of sun excites you, And the long ages, and the lingering chill Make you pause to yawn, Opening your impervious mouth, Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers; Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums, Then close the wedge of your little mountain front, Your face, baby tortoise.

Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple And look with laconic, black eyes? Or is sleep coming over you again, The non-life? You are so hard to wake. Are you able to wonder? Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life Looking round And slowly pitching itself against the inertia Which had seemed invincible? The vast inanimate, And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye, Challenger. Nay, tiny shell-bird. What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against, What an incalculable inertia. Challenger, Little Ulysses, fore-runner, No bigger than my thumb-nail, Buon viaggio. All animate creation on your shoulder, Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield. The ponderous, preponderate, Inanimate universe; And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone. How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine, Stoic, Ulyssean atom; Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes. Voiceless little bird, Resting your head half out of your wimple In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.

Alone, with no sense of being alone, And hence six times more solitary; Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages Your little round house in the midst of chaos. Over the garden earth, Small bird, Over the edge of all things. Traveller, With your tail tucked a little on one side Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat. All life carried on your shoulder, Invincible fore-runner. Animal Poems The Crocodile Lewis Carroll, 1832 - 1898 How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! Animal Poems The Bear Galway Kinnell, 1927 - 2014 1 In late winter I sometimes glimpse bits of steam coming up from some fault in the old snow and bend close and see it is lung-colored and put down my nose and know the chilly, enduring odor of bear.

2 I take a wolf's rib and whittle it sharp at both ends and coil it up and freeze it in blubber and place it out on the fairway of the bears. And when it has vanished I move out on the bear tracks, roaming in circles until I come to the first, tentative, dark splash on the earth. And I set out running, following the splashes of blood wandering over the world. At the cut, gashed resting places I stop and rest, at the crawl-marks where he lay out on his belly to overpass some stretch of bauchy ice I lie out dragging myself forward with bear-knives in my fists. 3 On the third day I begin to starve, at nightfall I bend down as I knew I would at a turd sopped in blood, and hesitate, and pick it up, and thrust it in my mouth, and gnash it down, and rise and go on running. 4 On the seventh day, living by now on bear blood alone, I can see his upturned carcass far out ahead, a scraggled, steamy hulk, the heavy fur riffling in the wind.

I come up to him and stare at the narrow-spaced, petty eyes, the dismayed face laid back on the shoulder, the nostrils flared, catching perhaps the first taint of me as he died. I hack a ravine in his thigh, and eat and drink, and tear him down his whole length and open him and climb in and close him up after me, against the wind, and sleep. 5 And dream of lumbering flatfooted over the tundra, stabbed twice from within, splattering a trail behind me, splattering it out no matter which way I lurch, no matter which parabola of bear-transcendence, which dance of solitude I attempt, which gravity-clutched leap, which trudge, which groan.

6 Until one day I totter and fall— fall on this stomach that has tried so hard to keep up, to digest the blood as it leaked in, to break up and digest the bone itself: and now the breeze blows over me, blows off the hideous belches of ill-digested bear blood and rotted stomach and the ordinary, wretched odor of bear, blows across my sore, lolled tongue a song or screech, until I think I must rise up and dance. And I lie still. 7 I awaken I think. Marshlights reappear, geese come trailing again up the flyway. In her ravine under old snow the dam-bear lies, licking lumps of smeared fur and drizzly eyes into shapes with her tongue. And one hairy-soled trudge stuck out before me, the next groaned out, the next, the next, the rest of my days I spend wandering: wondering what, anyway, was that sticky infusion, that rank flavor of blood, that poetry, by which I lived?

Animal Poems The Dusk of Horses James Dickey, 1923 - 1997 Right under their noses, the green Of the field is paling away Because of something fallen from the sky. They see this, and put down Their long heads deeper in grass That only just escapes reflecting them As the dream of a millpond would. The color green flees over the grass Like an insect, following the red sun over The next hill. The grass is white. There is no cloud so dark and white at once; There is no pool at dawn that deepens Their faces and thirsts as this does. Now they are feeding on solid Cloud, and, one by one, With nails as silent as stars among the wood Hewed down years ago and now rotten, The stalls are put up around them. Now if they lean, they come On wood on any side. Not touching it, they sleep. No beast ever lived who understood What happened among the sun's fields, Or cared why the color of grass Fled over the hill while he stumbled, Led by the halter to sleep On his four taxed, worthy legs.

Each thinks he awakens where The sun is black on the rooftop, That the green is dancing in the next pasture, And that the way to sleep In a cloud, or in a risen lake, Is to walk as though he were still in the drained field standing, head down, To pretend to sleep when led, And thus to go under the ancient white Of the meadow, as green goes And whiteness comes up through his face Holding stars and rotten rafters, Quiet, fragrant, and relieved. Animal Poems Leda and the Swan W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939 A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? Animal Poems The Eagle Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1809 - 1892 He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. Animal Poems The Tyger William Blake, 1757 - 1827 Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Animal Poems The Lamb William Blake, 1757 - 1827 Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little lamb, I'll tell thee; Little lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For He calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild, He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little lamb, God bless thee! Little lamb, God bless thee!

Animal Poems The Fly William Blake, 1757 - 1827 Little fly, Thy summer’s play My thoughtless hand Has brushed away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink and sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength and breath, And the want Of thought is death, Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die. Animal Poems Woodchucks Maxine Kumin, 1925 - 2014 Gassing the woodchucks didn't turn out right. The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange was featured as merciful, quick at the bone and the case we had against them was airtight, both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone, but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range. Next morning they turned up again, no worse for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes and state-store Scotch, all of us up to scratch. They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course and then took over the vegetable patch nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots.

The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling to the feel of the .22, the bullets' neat noses. I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing, now drew a bead on the little woodchuck's face. He died down in the everbearing roses. Ten minutes later I dropped the mother. She flipflopped in the air and fell, her needle teeth still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard. Another baby next. O one-two-three the murderer inside me rose up hard, the hawkeye killer came on stage forthwith. There's one chuck left. Old wily fellow, he keeps me cocked and ready day after day after day. All night I hunt his humped-up form. I dream I sight along the barrel in my sleep. If only they'd all consented to die unseen gassed underground the quiet Nazi way. Animal Poems I Am!

Said the Lamb [excerpt] Theodore Roethke, 1908 - 1963 The Donkey I had a Donkey, that was all right, But he always wanted to fly my Kite; Every time I let him, the String would bust. Your Donkey is better behaved, I trust. The Ceiling Suppose the Ceiling went Outside And then caught Cold and Up and Died? The only Thing we'd have for Proof That he was Gone, would be the Roof; I think it would be Most Revealing To find out how the Ceiling's Feeling. The Chair A funny thing about a Chair: You hardly ever think it's there. To know a Chair is really it, You sometimes have to go and sit. The Hippo A Head or Tail—which does he lack? I think his Forward's coming back! He lives on Carrots, Leeks and Hay; He starts to yawn—it takes All Day— Some time I think I'll live that way. The Lizard The Time to Tickle a Lizard, Is Before, or Right After, a Blizzard.

Now the place to begin Is just under his Chin,— And here's more Advice: Don't Poke more than Twice At an Intimate Place like his Gizzard. Animal Poems Animals and Art (audio only) Ron Padgett, 1942 The Caterpillar Robert Graves, 1895 - 1985 Under this loop of honeysuckle, A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray, I nibble it leaf by leaf away. Down beneath grow dandelions, Daisies, old-man's-looking-glasses; Rooks flap croaking across the lane. I eat and swallow and eat again. Here come raindrops helter-skelter; I munch and nibble unregarding: Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm. I'll mind my business: I'm a good worm. When I'm old, tired, melancholy, I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum Close by, here on this lovely spray, And die and dream the ages away. Some say worms win resurrection, With white wings beating flitter-flutter, But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care? Either way I'll miss my share.

Under this loop of honeysuckle, A hungry, hairy caterpillar, I crawl on my high and swinging seat, And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat. Animal Poems The Chambered Nautilus Oliver Wendell Holmes This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! Animal Poems The Woman at the Washington Zoo Randall Jarrell, 1914 - 1965 The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I. . . .

this print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from work, and so To my bed, so to my grave, with no Complaints, no comment: neither from my chief, The Deputy Chief Assistant, nor his chief-- Only I complain. . . . this serviceable Body that no sunlight dyes, no hand suffuses But, dome-shadowed, withering among columns, Wavy beneath fountains--small, far-off, shining In the eyes of animals, these beings trapped As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap, Aging, but without knowledge of their age, Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death-- Oh, bars of my own body, open, open! The world goes by my cage and never sees me. And there come not to me, as come to these, The wild beasts, sparrows pecking the llamas' grain, Pigeons settling on the bears' bread, buzzards Tearing the meat the flies have clouded. . . .

Vulture, When you come for the white rat that the foxes left, Take off the red helmet of your head, the black Wings that have shadowed me, and step to me as man: The wild brother at whose feet the white wolves fawn, To whose hand of power the great lioness Stalks, purring. . . . You know what I was, You see what I am: change me, change me! Animal Poems The Walrus and the Carpenter Lewis Carroll, 1832 - 1898 The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright-- And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done-- "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!" The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead-- There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand: They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: "If this were only cleared away," They said, "it would be grand!" "If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "That they could get it clear?" "I doubt it," said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. "0 Oysters, come and walk with us!" The Walrus did beseech. "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each." The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said; The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head-- Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young Oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat-- And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more and more and more-- All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings." "But wait a bit," the Oysters cried, "Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!" "No hurry!" said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said, "Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed-- Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed." "But not on us!" the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue.

"After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!" "The night is fine," the Walrus said, "Do you admire the view? "It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!" The Carpenter said nothing but "Cut us another slice. I wish you were not quite so deaf-- I've had to ask you twice!" "It seems a shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick. After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!" The Carpenter said nothing but "The butter's spread too thick!" "I weep for you," the Walrus said: "I deeply sympathize." With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. "0 Oysters," said the Carpenter, "You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?" But answer came there none-- And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one. Animal Poems Ode to a Nightingale John Keats, 1795 - 1821 1.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 2. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 4. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 6. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod. 7. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 8. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toil me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

Animal Poems Evening Hawk Robert Penn Warren, 1905 - 1989 From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding The last tumultuous avalanche of Light above pines and the guttural gorge, The hawk comes. His wing Scythes down another day, his motion Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear The crashless fall of stalks of Time. The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. Look! Look! he is climbing the last light Who knows neither Time nor error, and under Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings Into shadow. Long now, The last thrush is still, the last bat Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom Is ancient, too, and immense. The star Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain. If there were no wind we might, we think, hear The earth grind on its axis, or history Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

Animal Poems Hope is the thing with feathers (254) Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886 Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. Animal Poems In the Memphis Airport Timothy Steele, 1948 Above the concourse, from a beam, A little warbler pours forth song. Beneath him, hurried humans stream: Some draw wheeled suitcases along Or from a beeping belt or purse Apply a cell phone to an ear; Some pause at banks of monitors Where times and gates for flights appear. Although by nature flight-endowed, He seems too gentle to reproach These souls who soon will climb through cloud In first class, business class, and coach.

He may feel that it's his mistake He’s here, but someone ought to bring A net to catch and help him make His own connections north to spring. He cheeps and trills on, swift and sweet, Though no one outside hears his strains. There, telescopic tunnels greet The cheeks of their arriving planes; A ground crew welcomes and assists Luggage that skycaps, treating bags Like careful ornithologists, Banded with destination tags.

Animal Poems World Below the Brine Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892 The world below the brine; Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds— the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold— the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes— and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray; Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths— breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do; The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this sphere; The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.

Animal Poems The Shark's Parlor James Dickey, 1923 - 1997 Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling Under the bedroom floor. In daylight there was my first brassy taste of beer And Payton Ford and I came back from the Glynn County slaughterhouse With a bucket of entrails and blood. We tied one end of a hawser To a spindling porch-pillar and rowed straight out of the house Three hundred yards into the vast front yard of windless blue water The rope out slithering its coil the two-gallon jug stoppered and sealed With wax and a ten-foot chain leader a drop-forged shark-hook nestling. We cast our blood on the waters the land blood easily passing For sea blood and we sat in it for a moment with the stain spreading Out from the boat sat in a new radiance in the pond of blood in the sea Waiting for fins waiting to spill our guts also in the glowing water.

We dumped the bucket, and baited the hook with a run-over collie pup. The jug Bobbed, trying to shake off the sun as a dog would shake off the sea. We rowed to the house feeling the same water lift the boat a new way, All the time seeing where we lived rise and dip with the oars. We tied up and sat down in rocking chairs, one eye on the other responding To the blue-eye wink of the jug. Payton got us a beer and we sat All morning sat there with blood on our minds the red mark out In the harbor slowly failing us then the house groaned the rope Sprang out of the water splinters flew we leapt from our chairs And grabbed the rope hauled did nothing the house coming subtly Apart all around us underfoot boards beginning to sparkle like sand Pulling out the tarred poles we slept propped-up on leaning to sea As in land-wind crabs scuttling from under the floor as we took runs about Two more porch-pillars and looked out and saw something a fish-flash An almighty fin in trouble a moiling of secret forces a false start Of water a round wave growing in the whole of Cumberland Sound the one ripple.

Payton took off without a word I could not hold him either But clung to the rope anyway it was the whole house bending Its nails that held whatever it was coming in a little and like a fool I took up the slack on my wrist. The rope drew gently jerked I lifted Clean off the porch and hit the water the same water it was in I felt in blue blazing terror at the bottom of the stairs and scrambled Back up looking desperately into the human house as deeply as I could Stopping my gaze before it went out the wire screen of the back door Stopped it on the thistled rattan the rugs I lay on and read On my mother's sewing basket with next winter's socks spilling from it The flimsy vacation furniture a bucktoothed picture of myself. Payton came back with three men from a filling station and glanced at me Dripping water inexplicable then we all grabbed hold like a tug-of-war. We were gaining a little from us a cry went up from everywhere People came running. Behind us the house filled with men and boys. On the third step from the sea I took my place looking down the rope Going into the ocean, humming and shaking off drops.

A houseful Of people put their backs into it going up the steps from me Into the living room through the kitchen down the back stairs Up and over a hill of sand across a dust road and onto a raised field Of dunes we were gaining the rope in my hands began to be wet With deeper water all other haulers retreated through the house But Payton and I on the stairs drawing hand over hand on our blood Drawing into existence by the nose a huge body becoming A hammerhead rolling in beery shallows and I began to let up But the rope strained behind me the town had gone Pulling-mad in our house far away in a field of sand they struggled They had turned their backs on the sea bent double some on their knees The rope over their shoulders like a bag of gold they strove for the ideal Esso station across the scorched meadow with the distant fish coming up The front stairs the sagging boards still coming in up taking Another step toward the empty house where the rope stood straining By itself through the rooms in the middle of the air. "Pass the word," Payton said, and I screamed it "Let up, good God, let up!" to no one there.

The shark flopped on the porch, grating with salt-sand driving back in The nails he had pulled out coughing chunks of his formless blood. The screen door banged and tore off he scrambled on his tail slid Curved did a thing from another world and was out of his element and in Our vacation paradise cutting all four legs from under the dinner table With one deep-water move he unwove the rugs in a moment throwing pints Of blood over everything we owned knocked the buckteeth out of my picture His odd head full of crashed jelly-glass splinters and radio tubes thrashing Among the pages of fan magazines all the movie stars drenched in sea-blood Each time we thought he was dead he struggled back and smashed One more thing in all coming back to die three or four more times after death. At last we got him out logrolling him greasing his sandpaper skin With lard to slide him pulling on his chained lips as the tide came, Tumbled him down the steps as the first night wave went under the floor. He drifted off head back belly white as the moon.

What could I do but buy That house for the one black mark still there against death a forehead- toucher in the room he circles beneath and has been invited to wreck? Blood hard as iron on the wall black with time still bloodlike Can be touched whenever the brow is drunk enough. All changes. Memory: Something like three-dimensional dancing in the limbs with age Feeling more in two worlds than one in all worlds the growing encounters. Animal Poems Seal Lullaby Rudyard Kipling, 1865 - 1936 Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green. The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us At rest in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

Animal Poems The Maldive Shark Herman Melville, 1819 - 1891 About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, How alert in attendance be. From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw They have nothing of harm to dread, But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank Or before his Gorgonian head; Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth In white triple tiers of glittering gates, And there find a haven when peril’s abroad, An asylum in jaws of the Fates! They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey, Yet never partake of the treat— Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull, Pale ravener of horrible meat. Animal Poems The Elephant is Slow to Mate D. H.

Lawrence, 1885 - 1930 The elephant, the huge old beast, is slow to mate; he finds a female, they show no haste they wait for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts slowly, slowly to rouse as they loiter along the river-beds and drink and browse and dash in panic through the brake of forest with the herd, and sleep in massive silence, and wake together, without a word. So slowly the great hot elephant hearts grow full of desire, and the great beasts mate in secret at last, hiding their fire. Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts so they know at last how to wait for the loneliest of feasts for the full repast. They do not snatch, they do not tear; their massive blood moves as the moon-tides, near, more near till they touch in flood. Animal Poems The White Horse D. H. Lawrence, 1885 - 1930 The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are so silent, they are in another world.

Animal Poems Mole Wyatt Prunty, 1947 For weeks he’s tunneled his intricate need Through the root-rich, fibrous, humoral dark, Buckling up in zagged illegibles The cuneiforms and cursives of a blind scribe. Sleeved by soft earth, a slow reach knuckling, Small tributaries open from his nudge— Mild immigrant, bland isolationist, Berm builder edging the runneling world. But now the snow, and he’s gone quietly deep, Nuzzling through a muzzy neighborhood Of dead-end-street, abandoned cul-de-sac, And boltrun from a dead-leaf, roundhouse burrow. May he emerge four months from this as before, Myopic master of the possible, Wise one who understands prudential ground, Revisionist of all things green; So when he surfaces, lumplike, bashful, Quizzical as the flashbulb blind who wait For color to return, he’ll nose our green- rich air with the imperative poise of now.

Animal Poems The Fish Elizabeth Bishop, 1911 - 1979 I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen —the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly— I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony.

I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. —It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip —if you could call it a lip— grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw.

I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels—until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go. Animal Poems As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844 - 1889 As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices; Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God's eye what in God’s eye he is— Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces. Main menu

Question: In the poem by William Blake which animal was "Burning bright in the forests of the night"?
Answer: 'THE TYGER'