He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.

In these lines Blake condemns the deliberate instilling of skepticism in the young—especially skepticism that corrodes innocence, imaginative vision, or spiritual assurance. The “child” stands for unfallen perception and intuitive trust; to “teach the child to doubt” is to impose a prematurely cynical, rationalizing cast of mind. The punishment is figured as entrapment in the “rotting grave,” suggesting that such instruction deadens the soul and fixes the teacher (and perhaps the culture that endorses it) in spiritual decay. The couplet’s blunt moral cadence resembles a proverb or curse, aligning with Blake’s recurring critique of systems—religious, educational, or philosophical—that bind the mind and extinguish creative life.