Lyric Poem · Sad
Infant Sorrow
My mother groaned, my father wept:
Into the dangerous world I leapt,
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling-bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Infant Sorrow” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/infant-sorrow
Quick facts
- Poem
- Infant Sorrow
- Poet
- William Blake
- Length
- 8 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Short Poems
- Themes
- Sad, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 8 lines · 2 quatrains
- Line length
- Lines run 7-9 syllables (median 8), consistent with tetrameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Blake1757–1827
- Source record
- PoetryDBInfant Sorrow by william-blake, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 da6536c8cb48f5bb…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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