When compared to Songs of Innocence, the themes and styles in Songs of Experience is darker and much more pessimistic, showing the other end of the spectrum. These are uniform throughout and it seems to reflect the idea that as a person grow older and gain more experience, they become more cynical, skeptical and more bitter towards life. The poems in Songs of Experience, do support this theory and the four poems I will be using are `The Little Vagabond', `Nurse's Song', `A Poison Tree' and `The Clod and the Pebble'. Each of these poems can be used to show the different writing styles and themes that are prevalent in Songs of Experience.

The poems reflect the theme that the transition from innocence to experience creates a cynical mind. The poem `Nurse's Song' echoes the sentiment of creating a cynical mind. In this poem, the persona, a children's...