This is a very well-known poem, but it is always worth reading again, and this is certainly one which must be read out loud. This is very good for the kids too. They will love to learn it. So just try it out and get the beat into your brain.

It is of course William Blake, that strange and visionary English poet, and this comes from The Book of Thel (1789), the year of the French Revolution.

THE TIGER

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

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned 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 they 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?

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