Structure Of The Schoolboy By William Blake

The Schoolboy by William Blake is a poem with a very simple structure where the first stanza is caved to show the schoolboy's love for natural education. The second and third stanza which are equally five lines each like the first stanza, show the cold reaction of the schoolboy towards formal education:
"But to go to scho
ol in a summer morn_
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.

Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower." (stanza 2-3)

The fourth, fifth and sixth stanzas are written by Blake as the schoolboy's opinion to claim that a child denied of his/her innate joy and pleasure will not be at best performance and will a sweet youthful memory

The six stanzas of five lines per stanza make the poem a total of 30 lines.

The language of the poem is as simple as ABC; similar to that of a boy in elementary. Blake embraced the use of symbolism and rhetorical questions to convey his words. The stanzas 4,5,6 are rhetorical questions while natures are symbolized in the poem (singing birds are symbols of true education, winter symbolized adulthood and old age)

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Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)