The Songs of Experience was published in 1794 as a follow up to Blake's 1789 Songs of Innocence.[1] The two books were published together under the merged title Songs of Innocence and Experience, showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul: the author and printer, W. Blake[2] featuring 54 plates. The illustrations are arranged differently in some copies, while a number of poems were moved from Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience. Blake continued to print the work throughout his life.[3] Of the copies of the original collection, only 28 published during his life are known to exist, with an additional 16 published posthumously.[4] Only 5 of the poems from Songs of Experience appeared individually before 1839 with[5] "A Poison Tree" first published in the 1830 London University Magazine.[6]
The original title of the poem is "Christian Forbearance,"[7] and was placed as number 10 in the Rossetti manuscript,[8] printed on a plate illustrated by a corpse under a barren tree. The body was shown in a similar manner to the crucified corpse of Blake's "A Negro on the Rack" in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative.[9]