"Holy Thursday" is a poem by William Blake, from his 1789 book of poems Songs of Innocence. (There is also a Holy Thursday poem in Songs of Experience, which contrasts with this song.)
The poem depicts a ceremony held on Ascension Day, which in England was then called Holy Thursday,Oxford DictionariesThe Book of Common Prayer 1816 a name now generally applied to what is also called Maundy Thursday:Collins English Dictionary Six thousand orphans of London's charity schools, scrubbed clean and dressed in the coats of distinctive colours, are marched two by two to St Paul's Cathedral, under the control of their beadles, and sing in the cathedral.David Fairer, "Experience Reading Innocence: Contextualizing Blake's Holy Thursday" in Eighteenth-Century Studies, Volume 35, Number 4, Summer 2002, pp. 535-562Songs of Innocence "Holy Thursday (I)" Synopsis and commentary
The children in their colourful dresses are compared to flowers and their procession toward the church as a river. Their singing on the day that commemorated the Ascension of Jesus is depicted as raising them above their old, lifeless guardians, who remain at a lower level.TATE: "Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday"Naser Emdad, "Transformation of Blake in 'Holy Thursday': From a Spiritual Prophet to a Social Reformer" in ASA University Review, Vol. 6 No. 2, July – December, 2012GradeSaver: "Songs of Innocence and of Experience Summary and Analysis"
The bleak reality of the orphans' lives is depicted in the contrasting poem, "Holy Thursday" (Songs of Experience).
Poem
References
External links A comparison of extant copies of the original hand painted copies of "Holy Thursday" available from the William Blake Archive