Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she doth depart.
Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly;
He took her with a sigh .
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
WILLIAM BLAKE
Source: The Literature Network. http://www.online-literature.com/blake/614
This poem written by William Blake deals with the different feelings a man/ woman can suffer by loving anyone else. In my opinion, there are four main ideas in the poem. The first one is explained in the first stanza, where a Clod of clay is for the pleasure and care of its beloved. The importance in love is not to be selfish and to devote oneself to the beloved. It doesn’t matter if the others show interest in you o not.
But in the third stanza a Pebble of the brook shows just the
opposite
feelings mentioned in the first one. It claims that the most important
goal in life is to be happy and therefore selfish when it is related
with love. You have to achieve your goals and meanwhile you
don’t need to have in mind others’ feelings.
The next main idea is included in quartets four and five. Here the one
who is speaking is the poet. He supports the idea of telling your
beloved your feelings. You don’t have to worry about his/ her
reaction. You have to behave the way you are and to express yourself so
that he/ she realize what you think and feel. In this case he is
refused.
And the last main point in this poem is the last quartet, where the poet explains that there would always be another beloved, another motivation in life.
All of them are quiet direct; however, none of them mentions neither names nor genre or sex of their beloved. The exception is the poet’s point of view, because he says the genre of his sweetheart: “she”.
There are also two different points of view. On the one hand, there are the Cod and the Pebble and on the other hand there are the poet and the traveller. The first point is like the two faces of the same coin: one is positive and the other is negative, there is no middle point. For them you can only love or be loved. The second one has also a negative and a positive meaning, but the one is like the solution of the other. I think that there is no ambiguity in love, at least in the way the poem expresses it, because it only enumerates four pints of view about love and there exist many other ways of loving.
If you try to analyse the mood in which the poem was written you will
realize that there is, in my opinion, an ironic tone in its content.
The most ironic verses are verses twenty and twenty-four. The former
shows sympathy, sadness, but also we can interpret, in a way, which the
poet had expected this negative answer from his beloved, the latter has
an ironic sense, too. It seems logical to the poet that you
won’t let this new opportunity (traveller) pas by.
The poem is structured in six quartets with an A-B-A-B rhyme. It is a
combination of two different poems “Never seek pain to tell
thy love” and “The Clod and the Pebble”,
both written by W. Blake. Perhaps we could interpret the Clod as
“the weak” and the Pebble as “the
strong” characters. Maybe these are not the correct ways of
acting (loving) and referring to the man’s behaviour this is
just in the way and thus, the best one. Other technical features in
this poem are the repeated structures (v. 1, 3) and the change of order
of some words in order to say the opposite (v. 4, 12).
In the sixth quartet there is a repetition so that we can imagine the poet’s hesitation in telling his sweetheart about his feelings.
Finally, the last three verses are a bit shorter. For me, the reason for that is that he feels alone again, maybe afraid of it and therefore he accepts the new opportunity quiet resigned.
Now that I have interpreted this poem I can assure that there is a great variety in the ways of loving someone. The solution for these problems in the poem is not like that one in real life. If you want to reach happiness with a beloved next to you , you need to be aware of this “giving- receiving” idea, not only things like gifts or presents, but also feelings, smiling, caresses, etc. If you don’t have a reciprocal love you won’t never be happy. I want also to add that if you are rejected by a beloved one you must not substitute this person. Just try to find the right one who makes you feel right again and try to profess love to him/ her again.