The Tiger

William Blake

Tiger, tiger, 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 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 watered heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee? Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

A poem made entirely of questions, hammered out like iron. The Tyger is never described, only interrogated.

Source: William Blake, Songs of Experience (1794), from the Project Gutenberg edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, which modernizes the spelling Blake engraved, "Tyger." Text: Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the US.

Public domain in the United States.