"Auguries of Innocence" is a
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
, from a notebook of his now known as the Pickering Manuscript.
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
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'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.
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