The irony of childhood is that most of it is spent being told to “just grow up” or, “stop acting like a child.” The demand implies the question, “why can't a child be more like an adult?” ie rational, purposeful, prepared to play by the rules. One treasures more than anything that special quality children have – childishness – and yet one is simultaneously on a mission to destroy it. Again ironically, it is a common trope of ‘adults’ to refuse to grow up, a goal to stay ‘young forever’ – to be free and wild for as long as possible. Lyrists throughout history have been known to cast a green eye on infancy.
In all previous eras of western history, the period before adulthood held no special significance. Children were prepared to work as soon…show more content… Blake also portrays bitterness in the character of the nurse, her jealousy is aroused when, “the voices of children are heard on the green / And whisperings are in the dale.” As her youthful pleasures are past, she wishes to deny the children theirs. Both artist wish to emanate that childhood is unappreciated by the human…show more content… Our consumerist way of life pushes children to grow up before they are ready. Yet the dreams, and colorful imagined “adventures” are often lost in the transition from youth into adulthood, Jay-Z explains, “Couldn´t happen today.” So when in the midst of life does one initiate maturity? In The Nurses Song, the nurse warns that adulthood, will be wasted “in disguise.” Her knowledge is seemly acquired out of experience - by virtue of no longer being youthful. Jay-Z sooths us with rap lyric, “It's so hard to get old without a cause.” He assures that there is much time before innocence is taken away from us, “Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies.” Blake disagrees, the last stanza magnifies the strand of which a child innocence’s clings by - “The sun is gone down/And the dews of night arise” Blake successfully uses metaphors in his poetry to suggest that innocence is not