The Clod and the Pebble

Blake's The Clod and the Pebble is fairly straightforward; it gives two interpretations of the nature of love (or, as I will assert, the Church). In the first, a clod of clay (recall Isaiah 64:8, "...We are the clay, and you our potter...") views love as selfless, while in the second, a pessimistic pebble views love as self-interested.  There is a logical link fashioned between the poem and the Church through Blake's active emulation poem  of I Corinthians 13: 4-7:

               ^"4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade                 itself, is not puffed up; ⁵does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is                 not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the             truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures                           all things."

By drawing this connection, Blake asserts that his message is closely related to scripture.  The self-sacrificing clay (Christ and true Christ-emulators) builds heaven upon this hellish earth, while the self-interested, immovable stone (The Church) builds hell in this heaven, despite the teachings of the Bible.  The Clod and the Pebble, ultimately, chastises the opulence of a hypocrite institution fed by mercenary behavior, and calls instead for a more magnanimous, intimate, Biblical version of Christianity.