Songs of Innocence and Experience

When I first read the title I figured that Blake had created a compilation of songs .. dir .. and as I came to find out I was wrong. Poems are like songs, maybe that's where Blake got his title. As I started to go through his poems I found myself very confused. I was reading a version that was not his plates but just the lyrics of the poem. I found it very hard to understand with out the visual aid of his pictures to help me. I feel like the pictures helped me to understand the poems more. The two plates I found very interesting was "Infant Joy" and "Infant Sorrow." I was confused as I was reading them. How can an infant be considered joy and sorrow? Usually the gift of a child is something happy and joyous like the first plate suggested. As I read further I realized that Joy is the child's name. The child is two days old and born happy like most babies are so its name is automatically Joy. She is happy to be a part of this world and experience more than just her two days here. In the next plate "Infant Sorrow" we see "Joy" in a different light. "Joy" is now being born/ leaping into a "dangerous world" to an unhappy father (shouldn't he be happy?) and a groaning mother. I wouldn't want my parents to be that way if I was just born! The line "Like a fiend hid in a cloud. " is what really caught my attention. Firstly because I had no idea what fiend was and secondly how can you hide in a cloud. I looked up fiend and figured out that it means the devil. I found this very ironic! Why would a devil hide in a cloud when a cloud is symbolic of an angel or maybe "Joy" from the first plate. As the poem continues the baby is struggling to get out of its swaddling. Because the baby is stuck between the world, his fathers hands, and his wrappings he does what any baby would do and get food. This is a really cool poem. I like the idea that in the first plate (being from the songs of innocence) it seems like an angel is born and in the second plate (experience) it is the devil. I hope my thoughts aren't way off here!