Lyric Poem · Nature
The Tyger
by William Blake · 1794
1Tyger, tyger, burning bright
2In the forests of the night,
3What immortal hand or eye
4Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
5In what distant deeps or skies
6Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
7On what wings dare he aspire?
8What the hand dare seize the fire?
9And what shoulder and what art
10Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
11And, when thy heart began to beat,
12What dread hand and what dread feet?
13What the hammer? what the chain?
14In what furnace was thy brain?
15What the anvil? what dread grasp
16Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Tyger” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/the-tyger
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Tyger
- Poet
- William Blake
- Published
- 1794
- Length
- 24 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Nature, Life
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
- 24 lines · 6 quatrains
- Line length
- Mostly 7-syllable lines.
- Refrains
- “Tyger, tyger, burning bright”“In the forests of the night,”“What immortal hand or eye”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
- PoetryDBThe Tyger by william-blake, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1794
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 3df9e133090c3a17…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.