Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night
-- Speaker (Lines 1 – 2)

Importance: These lines initiate the poem (and reappear later in its closing stanza) and are two of the best-known verses of poetry in the English language. They are significant for establishing multiple features of the poem, including its catalectic trochaic tetrameter and its pattern of repetition evident in complete words (“Tyger Tyger”), alliteration (“burning bright”) and assonance (“Tyger,” “bright,” “night”). In the contrast between the bright Tyger and the dark night, emphasized by the bright-night rhyme, they also begin the poem’s focus on contraries, or contrasting elements of creation.

In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
-- Speaker (Lines 5 – 6)

Importance: These lines form the first half of the second stanza and continue the pattern of contrasting images in the poem. The juxtaposition of “distant deeps or skies” suggests a provenance of either hell or heaven for the fire of...