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Home , A Cradle Song, Infant Joy, Laughing Song, The Blossom, The Divine Image, The Lamb (poem)

This publication of William ’s Songs of Innocence is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way.

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, the Pennsylvania State University, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them, and as such is a part of the Pennsylvania State University’s Elec- tronic Classics Series.

Cover design: Jim Manis; Cover art:

Copyright © 1998 The Pennsylvania State University Songs of Innocence

by

William Blake

Songs of Innocence was the first of Blake’s illuminated books published in 1789. The poems and artwork were reproduced by copperplate engraving and colored with washes by hand. In 1794 he expanded the book to in- clude Songs of Experience. Frontispiece 3 Songs of Innocence by William Blake Table of Contents

5 …Introduction 17 … 6 … The images contained 19 … 7 … in this publication are 20 … 7 …On Another’s Sorrow copies of William 22 … 8 … Blake’s originals for 22 … 10 …Holy Thursday his first publication. 22 … 11 …Nurse’s Song 23 … 11 … 24 … 12 … 25 … 13 …The Voice of the Ancient Bard 26 … 13 …Ecchoing Green 15 … 16 … 4 Introduction

Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me:

“Pipe a song about a Lamb!” So I piped with merry chear. “Piper, pipe that song again” So I piped, he wept to hear.

“Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy chear- So I sung the same again, While he wept with joy to hear.

“Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.” So he vanish’d from my sight, And I pluck’d a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Title Page Every child may joy to hear. 5 The Shepherd

How sweet is the Shepherd’s sweet lot! From the morn to the evening he strays; He shall follows his sheep all the day, And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lamb’s innocent call, And he hears the ewe’s tender reply; He is watchful while they are in peace, For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.

6 Infant Joy On Another’s Sorrow: “I have no name: I am but two days old.” Can I see another’s woe, What shall I call thee:’ And not be in sorrow too! “I happy am, Can I see another’s grief, Joy is my name.” And not seek for kind relief! Sweet joy befall thee! Can I see a falling tear, Pretty joy! And not feel my sorrow’s share? Sweet joy, but two days old. Can a father see his child Sweet joy I call thee: ‘Weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d! Thou dost smile, I sing the while, Can a mother sit and hear Sweet joy befall thee! An infant groan, an infant fear? No, no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!

And can he who smiles on all Hear the wren with sorrows small, Hear the small bird’s grief & care, Hear the woes that infants bear,

7 And not sit beside the nest, Pouring in their breast; The School Boy And not sit the cradle near, Weeping tear on infant’s tear; I love to rise in a summer morn When the birds sing on every tree; And not sit both night & day, The distant huntsman winds his horn, Wiping all our tears away? And the sky-lark sings with me. O! no, never can it be! O! what sweet company. Never, never can it be! But to go to school in a summer morn, He doth give his joy to all; O! it drives all joy away; He becomes an infant small; Under a cruel eye outworn, He becomes a man of woe; The little ones spend the day He doth feel the sorrow too. In sighing and dismay.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, Ah! then at times I drooping sit, And thy maker is not by; And spend many an anxious hour, Think not thou canst weep a tear, Nor in my book can I take delight, And thy maker is not near. Nor sit in learning’s bower, Worn thro’ with the dreary shower. O! he gives to us his joy That our grief he may destroy; How can the bird that is born for joy Till our grief is fled & gone Sit in a cage and sing:’ He doth sit by us and moan. Hear can a child, when fears annoy, 8 But droop his tender wing, And forget his youthful spring?

O! father & mother, if buds are nip’d And blossoms blown away, And if the tender plants are strip’d Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care’s dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appearr Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear?

9 Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of Holy Thursday the poor; Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your ’Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, door. The children walking two & two, in red & blue & green, Grey-headed beadles walk’d before, with wands as white as snow, Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames’ waters flow.

O what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town! Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own. The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song, Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among. 10 Nurse’s Song Laughing Song

When the voices of children are heard on the green, When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And laughing is heard on the hill, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; My heart is at rest within my breast, When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And everything else is still. And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

“Then come home, my children, the sun is gone When the meadows laugh with lively green. down, And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene, And the dews of night arise; When Mary and Susan and Emily Come, come, leave off play, and let us away With their sweet round mouths sing “Ha, Ha, He!” Till the morning appears in the skies.” When the painted birds laugh in the shade. “No, no, let us play, for it is yet nay, Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread, And we cannot go to sleep; Come live & be merry, and join with me, Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, To sing the sweet chorus of “Ha, Ha, He!” And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.”

“Well, well, go & play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed.” The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh’d And all the hills ecchoed.

11 The Little Black Boy

My mother bore me in the southern wild, The cloud will vanish: we shall hear his voice, And I am black. but O! my soul is white; Saying: ‘Come out from lhe grove, my love & care. White as an angel is the English child, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.’ But I am black as if bereav’d of light. Thus did my mother say, and kissed me; My mother taught me underneath a tree, And thus I say to little English boy. And, sitting down before the heat of day, When I from black and he from white cloud free. She took me on her lap and kissed me, And round the tent of God like lambs we joy, And pointing to the east began to say: I’ll shade him from the heat, till he can bear “Look on the rising sun: there God does live, To lean in joy upon our father’s knee; And gives his light, and gives his heat away; And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair, And flowers and trees and beasts and men recieve And be like him, and he will then love me. Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

“And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love; And these black bodies and this sunburnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. “For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear,

12 The Voice of the Ancient Bard Ecchoing Green

Youth of delight, come hither, The Sun does arise, And see the opening morn. And make happy the skies; Image of truth new-born. The merry bells ring Doubt is fled & clouds of reason, To welcome the Spring; Dark disputes & artful teazing. The sky-lark and thrush, Folly is an endless maze. The birds of the bush. Tangled roots perplex her ways. Sing louder around How many have fallen there! To the bells’ chearful sound, They stumble all night over bones of the dead, While our sports shall be seen And feel they know not what but care, On the Ecchoing Green. And wish to lead others, when they should be led. Old John, with white hair. Does laugh away care, Sitting under the oak, Among the old folk.

13 They laugh at our play, And soon they all say: “Such, such were the joys When we all, girls & boys, In our youth time were seen On the Ecchoing Green.”

Till the little ones, weary. No more can be merry; The sun does descend, And our sports have an end. Round the laps of their mothers Many sisters and brothers. Like birds in their nest. Are ready for rest, And sport no more seen On the darkening Green.

14 The Chimney Sweeper Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind; When my mother died I was very young, And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, And my father sold me while yet my tongue He’d have God for his father & never want joy. Could scarcely cry “ ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!” So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark. And got with our bags & our brushes to work. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; That curl’d llke a lamb’s back. was shav’d: so I said So if all do their duty they need not fear harm. “Hush. Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”

And so he was quiet & that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned or Jack. Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.

And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he open’d the coffins & set them all free; Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run, And wash in a river. and shine in the Sun.

15 The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love All pray in their distress; An to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, our father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every dime That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

16 A Dream And all must love the human form, In heathen, turk, or jew; Once a dream did weave a shade Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell O’er my Angel-guarded bed, There God is dwelling too. That an Emmet lost its way Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled,’wilder’d, and forlorn, Dark, benighted, travel-worn, Over many a tangled spray, All heart-broke I heard her say:

“O, my children! do they cry! Do they hear their father sigh!’ Now they look abroad to see: Now return and weep for me.”

Pitying, I drop’d a tear; But I saw a glow-worm near, Who replied: “What wailing wight Calls the watchman of the night!

“I am set to light the ground, While the beetle goes his round: 17 Follow now the beetle’s hum; Little wanderer, hie thee home.”

18 “Sweet sleep. come to me The Little Girl Lost Underneath this tree. Do father, mother. weep! In futurity Where can Lyca sleep! I prophetic see That the earth from sleep “Lost in desart wild (Grave the sentence deep) Is your little child. How can Lyca sleep Shall arise and seek If her mother weep! For her maker meek; And the desart wild “If her heart does ake Become a garden mild. Then let Lyca wake; If my mother sleep, In the southern clime, Lyca shall not weep. Where the summer’s prime Never fades away, “Frowning, frowning night, Lovely Lyca lay. O’er this desart bright, Let thy moon arise Seven summers old While I close my eyes.” Lovely Lyca told; She had wander’d long Sleeping Lyca lay Hearing wild birds’ song. While the beasts of prey, Come from caverns deep, View’d the maid asleep. 19 The Little Girl Found The kingly lion stood, And the virgin view’d, All the night in woe Then he gambol’d round Lyca’s parents go O’er the hallow’d ground. Over vallies deep. While the desarts weep. Leopards, tygers, play Round her as she lay, Tired and woe-begone. While the lion old Hoarse with making moan, Bow’d his mane of gold Arm in arm seven days They trac’d the desart ways. And her bosom lick. And upon her neck Seven nights they sleep From his eyes of flame Among shadows deep. Ruby tears there came; And dream they see their child Starv’d in desart wild. While the lioness Loos’d her slender dress. Pale, thro’ pathless ways And naked they convey’d The fancied image strays To caves the sleeping maid. Famish’d, weeping, weak, With hollow piteous shriek.

20 Rising from unrest, The trembling woman prest On his head a crown; With feel of weary woe: On his shoulders down She could no further go. Flow’d his golden hair. Gone was all their care. In his arms he bore Her, arm’d with sorrow sore; “Follow me.” he said; Till before their way “Weep not for the maid; A couching lion lay. In my palace deep Lyca lies asleep.” Turning back was vain: Soon his heavy mane Then they followed Bore them to the ground. Where the vision led, Then he stalk’d around. And saw their sleeping child Among tygers wild. Smelling to his prey; But their fears allay In this day they dwell When he licks their hands, In a lonely dell; And silent by them stands. Nor fear the wolvish howl Nor the lions’ growl. Tbey look upon his eyes Fill’d with deep surprise; And wondering behold A Spirit arm’d in gold. 21 The Little Boy Lost A Cradle Song “Father! father! where are you going! O do not walk so fast. Sweet dreams form a shade Speak, father, speak to your little boy, O’er my lovely infant’s head; Or else I shall be lost.” Sweet dreams of pleasant streams By happy, silent, moony beams. The night was dark, no father was there; The child was wet with dew; Sweet sleep with soft down The mire was deep, & the child did weep, Weave thy brows an infant crown. And away the vapour flew. Sweet sleep, Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. The Little Boy Found Sweet smiles in the night The little boy lost in the lonely fen. Hover over my delight; Led by the wand’ring light, Sweet smiles, Mother’s smiles, Began to cry; but God, ever nigh. All the livelong night beguiles. Appear’d like his father, in white. Sweet moans. dovelike sighs, He kissed the child, & by the hand led. Chase not slumber from thy eyes. And to his mother brought, Sweet moans, sweeter smiles, Who in sorrow pale, thro’ the lonely dale. All the dovelike moans beguiles. Her little boy weeping sought.

22 Sleep sleep, happy child, Spring All creation slept and smil’d; Sleep sleep, happy sleep. Sound the Flute! While o’er thee thy mother weep. Now it’s mute. Birds delight Sweet babe, in thy face Day and Night; Holy image I can trace. Nightingale Sweet babe, once like thee, In the dale. Thy maker lay and wept for me, Lark in Sky. Merrily, Wept for me, for thee, for all, Merrily, Merrily, to welcome in the Year. When he was an infant small. Thou his image ever see, Little Boy, Heavenly face that smiles on thee, Full of joy;

Smiles on thee, on me, on all; Little Girl, Who becarne an infant small. Sweet and small: Infant smiles are his own smiles; Cock does crow, Heaven & earth to peace beguiles. So do you; Merry voice, Infant noise, Merrily, Merrily, to welcome in the Year.

23 Little Lamb, The Blossom Here I am; Come and lick Merry Merry Sparrow! My white neck; Under leaves so green. Let me pull A happy Blossom Your soft Wool Sees you, swift as arrow, Let me kiss Seek your cradle narrow Your soft face: Near my Bosom. Merrily, Merrily, we welcome in the Year. Pretty Pretty Robin! Under leaves so green, A happy Blossom Hears you sobbing, sobbing, Pretty Pretty Robin. Near my Bosom.

24 The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee, Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek & he is mild; He became a little child. I a child & thou a lamb. We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee! 25 Night They look in every thoughtless nest, Where birds are cover’d warm; The sun descending in the west, They visit caves of every beast, The evening star does shine; To keep them all from harm; The birds are silent in their nest. If they see any weeping And I must seek for mine. That should have been sleeping The moon like a flower. They pour sleep on their head In heaven’s high bower, And sit down by their bed. With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night. When wolves and tygers howl for prey, They pitying stand and weep; Farewell, green fields and happy groves, Seeking to drive their thirst away. Where flocks have took delight; And keep them from the sheep. Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves But if they rush dreadful, The feet of angels bright; The angels, most heedful, Unseen they pour blessing. Recieve each mild spirit, And joy without ceasing, New worlds to inherit. On each bud and blossom, And each sleeping bosom.

26 And there the lion’s ruddy eyes Shall flow with tears of gold. And pitying the tender cries, And walking round the fold, Saying “Wrath, by his meekness, And, by his health, sickness Is driven away From our immortal day.

“And now beside thee, bleating lamb, I can lie down and sleep; Or think on him who bore thy name, Graze after thee and weep. For, wash’d in life’s river, My bright mane for ever Shall shine like the gold. As I guard o’er the fold.”

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