On Another’s Sorrow. Essay -- English Literature

On Another’s Sorrow. There is a strong religious theme running throughout this poem. Black uses the idea of sorrow to show, and how we deal with it to show the difference between humans and God. He does this by splitting the poem into two halves and looking at how a person and then God would deal with sorrow. Blake asks several questions, as it is in first person at this point I feel that it is Blake asking the questions, which are, ‘Can I see another’s woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, And not seek for kind relief?’ This is an example of Blake’s use for the rhetorical question, which stirs thoughts of how we cope with sorrow, which is shown when he asks, if I can not feel sorrow when I see another feeling sorrow?, and when I see another feeling grief can I not go and find relief from it? He answers this with ‘no it can never be.’ This then leads the reader to ask themselves where he will find this relief. Blake then in the second half of the poem shows that God is the one who you can seek relief in and who is there to help in t...