The Tyger is undoubtedly William Blake’s best known and most quoted poem. Even in his own time, when most of his work received no attention, The Tyger had a wide circulation. There are several reasons for its immediate and its lasting popularity. One of the major ones is William Blake’s use of imagery, specifically the images of the lamb and of the tiger. The Lamb, a lesser known poem, echoes The Tyger’s imagery or at least foreshadows it. The two poems come from two separate collections, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience; these collections were meant to contrast and offset each other. In Blake’s words they were meant to show the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (Weathers 4). Accordingly the image of the lamb and of the tiger are meant to offset each other.

The Lamb has a single imagery. The lamb, an animal who …