Blake gives a newborn’s raw, unsparing account of entering the world. The mother groans, the father weeps, and the baby feels himself ‘leap’ into a dangerous place—helpless, naked, and shrieking so fiercely he compares himself to a fiend hidden in a cloud. That image captures the baby’s own sense of being something dark and raging, wrapped in a cry that conceals his true form. Right from that first breath, there is no tenderness, only struggle: the infant fights against his father’s hands and the tight swaddling bands that trap him. Exhaustion eventually wins out, and the final couplet drops into a weary, resentful surrender. He stops struggling and simply sulks on his mother’s breast, making the comfort feel more like defeat. The mood is heavy and claustrophobic, drenched in bitterness. Blake refuses any trace of sentimentality, instead presenting birth as a violent collision with a world that immediately constrains and silences.
Infant Sorrow — Summary
My mother groaned, my father wept: Into the dangerous world I leapt, Helpless, naked, piping loud, Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father's hands, Striving against my swaddling-bands, Bound and weary, I thought best To sulk upon my mother's breast.