Introduction to Songs of Innocence by William Blake

Poetry

Introduction

*William Blake (from Songs of Innocence, 1789)*

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 a 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, Every child may joy to hear.


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