The Tyger is a poem by William Blake, a English poet, painter and print maker. Blake’s works are considered seminal in poetry and visual arts. This is part of the book called The Songs of Experience published in 1794. It is one of Blake’s most known and analysed poems. Many of the facsimile prints can be seen here.

 

In the original print the poem is illustrated.

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, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & 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 water’d 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?

I first read this poem in the Rendezvous With Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. In the book one of the characters is overwhemled by the appeareance of the giant space-ship named Rama and in wonder says the lines from Blake’s Tyger.

As a species tiger is seriously endangered and its survival depends on just a few thousand (~ 1.5 K) indivduals left in the wild. They say that if immediately steps are not taken, we might not see the tiger in wild beyond the second decade of the century. Illegal poaching and destruction of the habitat are mainly responsible for exponential decline in the tiger population in the country.