 The primary objective of this poem is to question social and moral injustice.In the first stanza, Blake contrasts the "rich and fruitful land" with the actions of a "cold and usurous hand" - thereby continuing his questioning of the virtue of a society where resources are abundant but children are still "reduced to misery".The "Holy Thursday" referred to in the poem is Ascension Thursday, which in the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion, can be used a synonym for the same feast; Thomas Pruen uses the term to refer to Ascension Day in his "Illustration of the Liturgy of the Church of England", published in 1820; however use of the term "Holy Thursday" to mean Ascension Day is rare, and the term is more generally applied by most Christian denominations to Maundy Thursday in Holy Week.