Summary of 'To The Evening Star' by Blake

To The Evening Star (Summary)

                                                                                                                                                                -William Blake

‘To the evening star’ is a sonnet by a romantic poet Willam Blake (1757-1827). It is an address to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility. The poet or the speaker in this poem is calling upon ‘Her’ to protect all of us against the evils of night and more importantly, inspire the oppressed force of day time.

Blake describes ‘Her’ capacity throughout the sonnet. He addresses ‘Her’ as a ‘fair-haired angel of the evening’ who can light torch of love brightly at night to remove darkness and can put on glowing crown and smile upon the evening bed of humankind. He further says that the goddess Venus makes the fine morning and scatters the silver dew on every flower that shuts its silver eyes having timely sleep. Finally, he maintains that the wolf rages and the lion glares at night in darkness which are the emblems of evils; therefore, he requests to protect all the humankind against them covering by its sacred dew as done by the warm clothes.

Blake also hints at the pastoral simplicity as he finds the goddess’ inferiority and potential impotent to protect her own creation; therefore, he shows wonder in a final line of his sonnet. The second thing that can be considered is political entrapment as the goddess holds the power to put an end to all of the daytime’s rules. (change the colour of the sky, put the flowers to sleep). And lastly, the thing under consideration is sexual desire. The speaker is looking upon any excuse and any blessing to act upon his premitive desire to mate with the opposite sex. Anyway it is highly a symbolic poem which describes the goddess, Venus’ ability and at the same time the poet asks ‘Her’ to protect us from evil.

Sagun Shrestha