with radiance all their own

This Songs of Innocence template flows in a very song-like manner. The meter and beat of the Holy Thursday makes it sound like a nursery song as the words seem to flow out of the reader?s mouth. As Blake writes of a "radiance all their own" the audience is drawn to picture a very pure image of these children singing their hymns. This pure youth is further emphasized by Blake as he uses the word innocent to describe the children both in the first and third stanza as he describes their innocent faces and hands.

Thus, the radiance that is emanating from these small children is something that seems untainted by anyone, especially the aged men sitting underneath them. It is almost as if their poorness leaves them untouched by higher classes. There seems to be an unsettling feeling created as these youth sing such harmonious songs, yet Blake writes that they are unsure as to why they are singing. The impact of these harmonious voices are powerful despite their innocence and youth as the voices a carried by a "mighty wind" to heaven. It seems as though Blake is trying to emphasize that in dealing with heaven and church one should cherish the years of youth where one is innocent and untainted by any events that may skew your beliefs as you grow older.

This perplex and uneasy sense occurs as Blake?s Songs Of Innocence was intended for children and it as if he is trying to protect both the children he is writing of and the children reading this poem of the truth which lies beneath the ?innocent faces?. Therefore in the first Holy Thursday, Blake restrains from the negative.