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Elizabeth BishopA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Bishop’s “Sandpiper” is deeply influenced by William Blake’s poem “Auguries of Innocence.” Blake, a visionary figure in the British Romantic poetry movement, worked as a printer and a poet. Much of his poetry, he claimed, came from talking with angels, such as Uriel. Like Bishop, Blake was fascinated with the natural world. The first lines of “Auguries of Innocence” are:
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions" (Blake, William. “Auguries of Innocence.” 1863. Poetry Foundation.)
Bishop repeats the words “world” (Lines 2 and 13) and “grains” (Lines 12, 19, 20) in her poem “Sandpiper,” which also includes the word “sand” as part of the titular compound word. Furthermore, the first animals in Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” are birds. While Blake chooses a robin and a dove instead of a sandpiper, Bishop focuses on both the first type of animal that Blakes does and the first type of natural feature that Blake presents.
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