Realizing_Blake’s_Vision

Realizing Blake’s Vision Blake’s poems explore a world that he envisions as the “two contrary states of the human soul” (Norton 37). He uses two books of poems, the Songs of Experience and the Songs of Innocence, to represent his different points of view. In these books, Blake uses companion poems to mix related content and imagery to represent his viewpoints of innocence and experience. “The Ecchoing Green” and “London” are two particular poems from these books that can be considered companion poems. Clearly Blake’s double vision about the world is satisfied by these two poems. They are linked to each other by their content and imagery and the establishment of opposing tones and settings. “The Ecchoing Green” from Blake’s Songs of Innocence is the first from this set of companion poems. Blake’s innocence poems are typically of a livelier and happier tone. In the first stanza, happiness and innocence are established by the sun rising, the skies being happy, and the spring being welcomed by birds singing and by other pleasant sounds (1-8). Carefree-ness is portrayed particularly in the next stanza by Old John laughing amongst the old folk as they poem, poems, blake’s, companion, setting, innocence, every, songs, experience, two, tone, stanza, mother, green, each, vision, reader, marks, london, imagery, first, ecchoing, children, world, society, presented, peaceful, nature, line, gives, even, ending, double, day, content