poem

The Tyger, Sep 22, 2026

William Blake

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Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

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📖 About this poem

Blake's poem is really one long question stretched across six stanzas, asking who could possibly make something as beautiful and terrifying as a tiger. It never answers. That's the point. The hammering, insistent rhythm mimics a forge at work, all those blunt questions about hammer, chain, anvil, and furnace turning creation itself into a kind of blacksmith's labor, dangerous and awe-inspiring at once. The image of stars throwing down their spears and weeping is especially striking, suggesting even heaven flinched at what was being made. The final stanza asks whether the same god who made the gentle lamb could also make this burning, predatory thing, and leaves that tension hanging. It still lands because that question never really closes: how the same world holds both gentleness and ferocity, side by side, unexplained.