The Little Boy Lost
The Little Boy Lost - meaning Summary
Religion Versus Individual Reason
Blake presents a simple child whose natural, self-directed love is labeled heretical by a zealous priest. The priest arrests and ultimately burns the child while parents’ protests are ignored. The poem dramatizes how religious authority persecutes personal reason and compassion, turning «holy» institutions into sites of brutality. It functions as a moral indictment of organized religion’s intolerance and loss of empathy within English society.
Read Complete Analyses"Nought loves another as itself, Nor venerates another so, Nor is it possible to thought A greater than itself to know. "And, father, how can I love you Or any of my brothers more? I love you like the little bird That picks up crumbs around the door." The Priest sat by and heard the child; In trembling zeal he seized his hair, He led him by his little coat, And all admired the priestly care. And standing on the altar high, "Lo, what a fiend is here! said he: "One who sets reason up for judge Of our most holy mystery." The weeping child could not be heard, The weeping parents wept in vain: They stripped him to his little shirt, And bound him in an iron chain, And burned him in a holy place Where many had been burned before; The weeping parents wept in vain. Are such thing done on Albion's shore?
Feel free to be first to leave comment.