Lyric Poem · Sad
On Another's Sorrow
1Can I see another's woe,
2And not be in sorrow too?
3Can I see another's grief,
4And not seek for kind relief?
5Can I see a falling tear,
6And not feel my sorrow's share?
7Can a father see his child
8Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
9Can a mother sit and hear
10An infant groan, an infant fear?
11No, no! never can it be!
12Never, never can it be!
13And can He who smiles on all
14Hear the wren with sorrows small,
15Hear the small bird's grief and care,
16Hear the woes that infants bear —
17And not sit beside the next,
18Pouring pity in their breast,
19And not sit the cradle near,
20Weeping tear on infant's tear?
21And not sit both night and day,
22Wiping all our tears away?
23Oh no! never can it be!
24Never, never can it be!
25He doth give his joy to all:
26He becomes an infant small,
27He becomes a man of woe,
28He doth feel the sorrow too.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“On Another's Sorrow” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/on-anothers-sorrow
Quick facts
- Poem
- On Another's Sorrow
- Poet
- William Blake
- Length
- 36 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Sad, Childhood, Nature
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
- 36 lines · 9 quatrains
- Line length
- Mostly 7-syllable lines.
- Refrain
- “Never, never can it be!”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
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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
- PoetryDBOn Another's 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 b5e0d09bbdd842a3…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.