Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1826)/Songs of Experience/The Clod and the Pebble

by William Blake

Transcription (not listed in original)

The CLOD & the PEBBLE

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattles 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 anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.