This poem was first published in 1794 and was one of the series of poems in Songs of Experience. These short poems explore the harsh realities of late 18th and early 19th Century life during the time of King George III, known — ironically given the terrible social conditions of the time — as the Romantic Era. Most of the poems in the “Songs of Experience” category are matched with an idealistic portrayal in Songs of Innocence. The contrast is Blake’s method of social protest.

Blake was critical of the educational system of his day that, he believed, destroyed the joys of learning and suppressed imagination; the result stunted rather then enlarged the intellect. Blake himself was largely self-educated and did not endure the drudgery of the classroom as a child.

Blake viewed children as intrinsically free and unfettered, and associated them in his ‘Songs’ with spring, exploration and playfulness. The classroom and its cruel restrictions destroyed youthful spirit.

The poem also expresses Blake’s unconventional, free-thinking philosophy, critical as he was of the accepted societal constructs of his time, including education.

Structure
The poem comprises six quintains, or five lined-stanzas. Lines lengths and rhythm are irregular, which has unsettling effect, perhaps to match the frustration of the restricted child. The last two lines of each stanza are shorter, to reflect the dampening of childish spirit. It is as if the depressed child lacks the energy even to finish the line.

Each stanza, though, has a regular ABABB rhyme scheme.

Language and Imagery
Typical of Romantic poets Blake focuses on nature and the relationship of humans to the natural world. Blake and, for example, Shelley and Wordsworth, were Pantheists and saw the presence of God in the beauty around him. To deprive a child of this relationship was to curtail its spiritual and mental development.

The voice is the first person singular ‘I’, that of the child telling the reader of his unhappiness. Two effective images dominate the poem. In stanza three the metaphor of the caged bird represents the child’s lost freedom and curtailed imagination. In stanzas five and six the child is a plant that loses its blossom and can therefore bear no fruit.