Summary of The Schoolboy

“The Schoolboy” by William Blake is a told from the perspective of a young boy who is
espousing the cause of many children, that school is negatively impacting him.
The poem begins with the young narrator speaking on his ideal morning. He wakes and hears the
birds and the “distant huntsman” blowing his “horn.” The second stanza jumps to the mornings
he despairs of in which he is forced to leave his peaceful sanctuary and go to school.
The next two stanzas are infused with melodrama and are meant to elicit sympathy with the
reader. The boy describes his miserable days at school and how, like a trapped bird that cannot
sing, he should not be required to learn in restraints.
The speaker turns to plead with his parents. He tells them that if this continues his “buds” are
going to be “nipped,” his joy ripped from him, and the loss of his childhood will result in an
unpreparedness for life. He will not be able to last through the real trials of life, or winters as he
describes them.

Analysis of The Schoolboy

First Stanza
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!
In the first stanza of this piece Blake introduces the reader to his main character and speaker. The
poem is told from the perspective of a young school age boy who feels trapped in the monotony
of the everyday attendance to his studies. He speaks with the conscience of an older man,
projecting the emotions and beliefs common to the Romantic poets, of which Blake was one.
The young narrator speaks about the things he loves in this first stanza. He loves “to rise in a
summer morn” and hear the birds singing “on every tree.” Further in the distance he can hear the
horn of the “huntsman” and the song of the “skylark” who seems to sing only for him.
These are the types of company he desires. This is when he is happiest, a sentiment that many a
Romantic poet has expressed.

Second Stanza
But to go to school in a summer morn, –
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
The second stanza presents the exact opposite— things that “drive all joy away!”
When he is forced to rise on a “summer morn” and go to school, unable to stay in his peaceful
environment, he is unhappiest. He bemoans his, and his classmate’s, fate; that they are stuck
inside, “In sighing and dismay.”

Third Stanza
Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning’s bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.
The young speaker continues on, telling the reader more about his miserable days at school. He
sits “drooping,” hunched over in his seat. He takes no pleasure in school work and is anxiously
waiting for the end of the day. He cannot even take “delight” in his book, or “sit in learning’s
bower” as it has been all “Worn through” by rain.
It is clear from these lines that the child is not adverse to learning in general, he appreciates
reading and understands the joys that can be gained from encompassing oneself within the
“bower,” or sanctuary, of learning. It is only the structure of school he cannot stand.

Fourth Stanza
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!
In the fourth stanza of “The Schoolboy” the speaker is questions his reader, demanding an
answer to a rhetorical question. He pleads with whoever is listening and asks how a “bird that is
born for joy,” referring to himself or others that think like him, be asked to “Sit in a cage and
sing?” He knows that he was made to learn, read, and write, but he cannot do so in school, a
place he considers equal to a cage.
He now turns to begging on the behalf of other children. He makes the case for all those trapped
indoors. He professes to worry for their wellbeing and the fact that while they are inside, their
“tender” wings drooping, they are forgetting the “spring” of their youth. These children, just like
he is, are missing out on the joys of being a child.

Fifth Stanza
O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care’s dismay, –
In the fifth quintet of the poem the speaker turns to address his parents as he sees them as the
ones that could possibly change his situation. If only he can convince them to see things his way.
In this stanza he presents them with the reasons why they should not force him to go to school.
He speaks about his own childhood joys as being “buds” that are being “nipped” and “blossoms”
that are blowing away. His happiness is delicate like the “tender plants” and he should not have
to be subject to “sorrow and care’s dismay” at his young age. He need not feel so unhappy when
he is only a child.

Sixth Stanza
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?
If all of the things stated in the fifth stanza happen, if he is indeed stripped of his joy and given
sorrow in return, then how can his parents expect the appearance of fruit in the summer. They
should, he states, worry that due to their choices he will never be the same. He will be unable to
stand the “blasts of winter” when they appear.
While this poem did appear in Songs of Experience, this child has yet to reach an age in which he
will truly feel sorrow or despair. His youthful melodramatic appeal will fall on deaf ears.

About William Blake

William Blake was born in London, England in November of 1757. Blake was raised in humble
conditions and had a normal childhood except for the fact that he was consistently subjected to
visions. When he called to have seen God’s head in a window sill at four years old and later the
Prophet Ezekiel and a tree full of angels. From a young age Blake was noted for his verse and
drawing ability and when he was fourteen he began an apprenticeship to an engraver, the career
through which he would eventually earn his living.
In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher who would become a valuable assistant and loving
wife. In 1784, Blake set up his printshop and began to create his famous illuminated etchings. It
was through the convergence of his two loves, poetry and art, that Blake published Songs of
Innocence in 1789. This work was followed by Songs of Experience in 1794. These works are
notable not only for their beautiful illustrations and verse, but for the combination of the two.
These piece are generally considered to be Blake’s masterpiece.
The next years of Blake’s life brought new troubles. He was accused of uttering seditious, or
treasonous, sentiments against the king, but luckily, was found not guilty. This experience
inspired Blake to write the epic poem, Jerusalem.
By 1824, his health had taken a downward turn and he died in 1827, in the midst of creating an
illustrated version of Dante’s Divine Comedy.