The Two-Word Spell That Makes Blake’s Tiger Still Roar

“The Tyger” — William Blake (1757–1827), English

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?

About This Poem

Blake published “The Tyger” in 1794, pairing its blazing animal with a childlike rhyme scheme and questions that grow increasingly cosmic. But the phrase to keep in your pocket is “fearful symmetry.” “Symmetry” suggests balance, beauty, and careful design; “fearful” brings danger, awe, and the uneasy feeling that beauty may have teeth. Put those words together and the tiger becomes more than an animal: it becomes a problem the mind cannot politely solve.

Try Blake’s trick today. Take a plain noun and give it an adjective that refuses to behave: a “merciful knife,” a “jealous house,” a “cheerful wound.” The best combinations do not merely decorate a thing; they make it larger and stranger. Blake’s tiger has survived for centuries because he never explains the contradiction. He leaves it glowing in the dark, where contradictions tend to look their best.

If You Liked This

Read Blake’s companion poem, “The Lamb,” and notice how differently the same question—who made this creature?—sounds when the subject is gentle instead of terrifying.