Holy Thursday (Experience): Notes

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As might be expected, the perspective in the Experience poem is much darker and more savage than in the Songs of Innocence counterpart poem. Here the tone, from the opening lines onward, is openly questioning of the 'usurous' system of charity which represses the children, and of the hypocritical un-Christian religion which refuses to do something more positive for them. It is far less descriptive than Holy Thursday (Innocence), but it still raises questions of the speaker's attitude and tone, particularly as to the status of the final lines: is this the speaker's vision of the after-life, or an ironic portrait of the vision of Heaven which is being offered to the children at this service?


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