The Smile

By William Blake 1757–1827 William Blake

There is a smile of love,

And there is a smile of deceit,

And there is a smile of smiles

In which these two smiles meet;

And there is a frown of hate,

And there is a frown of disdain,

And there is a frown of frowns

Which you strive to forget in vain,

For it sticks in the heart's deep core,

And it sticks in the deep back bone,

And no smile that ever was smil'd,

But only one smile alone

That betwixt the cradle and grave

It only once smil'd can be,

But when it once is smil'd,

There's an end to all misery.

ABOUT THIS POEM

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Poet William Blake 1757–1827

POET’S REGION England

SCHOOL / PERIOD Romantic

Subjects Love, Living, Relationships, Romantic Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Realistic & Complicated

Poetic Terms Rhymed Stanza

More about this poem

In his Life of William Blake (1863) Alexander Gilchrist warned his readers that Blake "neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work'y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself 'a divine child,' whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and the earth." Yet Blake himself believed that his writings were of national importance and that they could be understood by a majority of men. Far from . . .

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