Comment 3 of 4, added on April 25th, 2006 at 5:40 AM.

This poem portrays two very different perceptions of love, one by the pebble and one by the clod.
The use of the term clod leads the reader to have a mental image of a lump of earth, and hence mouldable. The clod has a very benevolent image of love entrenched in its mind. It has the impression that love is unselfish and cares -- "Love seekth not itself to please,/Nor for itself hath any care". It also has the impression that love is a release, a warm embrace in contrast to this cold world that we live in, bringing paradise down to this cruel world -- "But for another gives it ease,/And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair".
The pebble here in this poem however, has a very different take on love. It is also noted that the image of the pebble gives the reader an image of a rock which has been smoothed by the movement of debbris rubbing against it, attacking it, perhaps symbolising a person in today's cold and harsh society where circumstances and past experiences have constantly bombarded him/her. Here, the pebble sees love as selfish and, in the process, limiting and suffocating, bringing unhappiness to a place which would have been paradise without it -- "Love seekth only Self to please,/To bind another to its delight,/Joys in another's loss of ease,/And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite".
However in this poem, the poet says that the "little Clod of Clay/Trodden with the cattle's feet", this could be the opinion of the poet, that the clod, like the many naive innocents we see, has suffered because of love and yet still goes on believing that love is all pure and unselfish, goes on believing in that benevolent imgae of love that it has. Whereas the pebble, in comparison much more experienced and attuned to the workings of love, is aware of the hurt, selfishness and suffocation love brings and the true form that it exists in.
The poet William Blake leaves the pebble's words to the last perhaps to further enhance the effects of those words as it leaves the reader with the phrases resounding in his/her mind.
This poem is thus essentially pointing out the opinion of the poet that love is not what the naive and innocent make it out to be, it is not all that unselfish and a refuge, instead, the poet is perhaps trying to tell us that love really is selfish and not liberating as the innocents might claim it to be.

geraldine from Singapore