William Blake's poems A Little Boy Lost and A Little Girl Lost both comment on the innocence of children and their innate resistance and inability to understand expectations of their conformity to societal ideals. While the titles are the same other than the differing genders of each child— the use of “little” in both cases serving to highlight the innocence of children—, the themes and reasons behind why each child is “lost” are incredibly different— a difference that is no doubt reliant on the strict division in gender roles at the time. The poems, particularly when read one after the other, provide a stark contrast between what is expected of and frowned upon within each gender from the moment they enter the human world.
Ultimately, the main theme of A Little Boy Lost is the dichotomy between religion and reason, and the expectation at the time that one should blindly adhere to religious values without questioning them. The poem begins with the little boy speaking in prayer— as indicated in line 5 when he addresses the “Father”— in which he addresses the weaknesses of mankind— “‘Nought loves another as itself… Nor is it possible to Thought/ A greater than itself to know (lines 1-4). In these first two quatrains the boy asks God how it is possible for man to love Him more than himself since man is naturally self-centered and thus incapable of such a love, as well as how it is possible for man to even know of God and his greatness since human thought is incapable of comprehending anything beyond its own level of intelligence. The poem then shifts from this innocent child’s point of view, and picks up a quicker pace as the priest seizes the boy’s hair “in trembling zeal” (line 10) with the onlooking crowd “admiring his Priestly care” (line 12). The priest brings the boy in front of the crowd, calls him a “fiend” (line 14) “‘who sets reason up for judge/ Of our most holy Mystery’” (line 15 and 16), and then proceeds to strip, chain, and burn him despite protests from his parents. Although Blake himself is religious, he is drawing attention here to the dangers and cruelties of organized religion when taken too far by creating such a villainous character for the priest and using the innocent little boy to further evoke reader’s sympathies. Additionally, Blake seems to be glorifying the practice of questioning established values— a theme commonly seen in Romantic works— as we, as readers, see no harm in the little boy’s actions and only feel pity that he should be so harshly punished simply for asking a question which arose out of the natural curiosity of young children. The boy does not seem to be heretical— he proclaims his love for god like “the little bird/ That picks up crumbs around the door” (lines 7 and 8)— but rather seems to simply wonder whether his love and understanding of God can amount to what it should. Thus the boy appears a martyr,— his only crime being the application of his reason rather than blind acceptance— and the masses as well as their leader, this villainous priest, appear to be in the wrong.
In contrast to the semi-glorification of this young boy’s use of reason, is the poem A Little Girl Lost in which the little girl is made to appear weak and dependent on her male counterparts. The poem tells the story of a young girl who falls in love with a boy in a garden while their “Parents were afar” (line 17). The poem describes love as a “fear” which the “maiden soon forgets” (line 19) when she agrees to meet with the boy late at night. However, when she actually goes to meet the boy she suddenly again becomes afraid and runs back to her father overwhelmed and “white” (line 25) with fear. Her father then scorns her calling her “‘pale and weak!’” (line 30) and proclaiming his own fear for her sake, likely afraid that she would lose her innocence and become impure. Here we see the little girl at the complete mercy of her father, week and “shaking with terror” (line 29); she is subordinate and inferior to first the power of the boy she loves and then the power of her father. This tells a great deal about the view of females at the time, who were looked at as inferior to males and expected to be obedient to them even from a young age. However, although there is no explicit statement of his personal view of women, Blake does make it clear that he does not condone this negative view of love with the opening stanza which addresses “Children of the future Age” (line 1), informing them with obvious amazement that “in a former age/ Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime” (lines 3 and 4).
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