T. S. Eliot once said of Blake's writings, "The Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience"... are the poems of man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them." (Grant 507) In these books of poetry and art, written and drawn by William Blake himself, are depictions of the poor, the colored, the underdog and the child's innocence and the man's experience. The focus of my paper will be on Blake's use of simple language, metaphors and drawings to show the two different states of the human spirit: innocence and experience. I hope to show this through two poems: the "Nurse's Song" of innocents and the "NURSES Song" of experience.
             In the first poem, the poem representing innocence, the nurse is in the background image as a pretty, young woman, sitting and reading by a tree. Her mood is peaceful and at rest "When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill." (Blake 23) The drawing and the poem also convey a sense of peace and trust. The children are naive and vulnerable to the pain, the sorrow, and the evils of the perverted world; yet their faith in the fact that they are protected by the nurse, like a lamb by his shepherd, is clear from their play. The nurse herself trusts that the children are safe from perversions because of their voices and laughter. The picture shows this trust of the children through their carefree play, holding hands and dancing in a ring.
             In the next stanza, the nurse seems to step into her knowledge of experience:
             Then come home my children, the sun is gone down
             Come Come Leave off play, and let us away
             Till the morning appears in the skies. (ll. 5-8)
             She asks them to come in, so as to protect them from the dangers, or maybe just from exposure, to the night and its dampness. Her concern for wha...