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Lyric Poem · Death & Loss

To Tirzah

by William Blake

1Whate'er is born of mortal birth

2Must be consumed with the earth,

3To rise from generation free:

4Then what have I to do with thee?

5The sexes sprang from shame and pride,

6Blown in the morn, in evening died;

7But mercy changed death into sleep;

8The sexes rose to work and weep.

9Thou, mother of my mortal part,

10With cruelty didst mould my heart,

11And with false self-deceiving tears

12Didst bind my nostrils, eyes, and ears,

13Didst close my tongue in senseless clay,

14And me to mortal life betray.

15The death of Jesus set me free:

16Then what have I to do with thee?

Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.

“To Tirzah” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/to-tirzah

Quick facts

Poem
To Tirzah
Poet
William Blake
Length
16 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Death & Loss, Sad, Love

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
16 lines · 3 stanzas of 4–8 lines
Line length
Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
Refrain
“Then what have I to do with thee?”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake

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
PoetryDBTo Tirzah 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 d0f007ffde644472…
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Jurisdiction-specific, never a worldwide claimRights policyReport a text or rights issue
Lyric PoemDeath & LossSadLove

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