"Auguries of Innocence" is a
poem by
William Blake, from a notebook of his now known as the Pickering Manuscript.
[ Encyclopædia Britannica Online.]
The Pickering Manuscript
" Online. Accessed 13 December 2010. It is assumed to have been written in 1803, but was not published until 1863 in the companion volume to
Alexander Gilchrist
Alexander Gilchrist (182830 November 1861), an English author, is known mainly as a biographer of William Etty and of William Blake. Gilchrist's biography of Blake is still a standard reference work about the poet.
Gilchrist was born at Newingto ...
's biography of Blake. The poem contains a series of
paradox
A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
es which speak of innocence juxtaposed with evil and corruption. It consists of 132 lines and has been published with and without breaks dividing it into
stanzas. An augury is a sign or
omen
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages fr ...
.
The poem begins:
It continues with a catalogue of moralising couplets, such as:
and:
The following lines are quoted in the film ''
Dead Man'' and in Agatha Christie's 1967 novel ''
Endless Night'':
References
* ''The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'', 1986, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Auguries Of Innocence
Poetry by William Blake