Songs of Innocence and Experience | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected] from the 1901 R. Brimley Johnson edition.
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
by William Blake
Contents:
SONGS OF INNOCENCE
Introduction?The Shepherd?The Echoing Green?The Lamb?The Little Black Boy?The Blossom?The Chimney-Sweeper?The Little Boy Lost?The Little Boy Pound?Laughing Song?A Cradle Song?The Divine Image?Holy Thursday?Night?Spring?Nurse's Song?Infant Joy?A Dream?On Another's Sorrow
SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
Introduction?Earth's Answer?The Clod and the Pebble?Holy Thursday?The Little Girl Lost?The Little Girl Found?The Chimney-Sweeper?Nurse's Song?The Sick Rose?The Fly?The Angel?The Tiger?My Pretty Rose-Tree?Ah, Sunflower?The Lily?The Garden of Love?The Little Vagabond?London?The Human Abstract?Infant Sorrow?A Poison Tree?A Little Boy Lost?A Little Girl Lost?A Divine Image?A Cradle Song?The Schoolboy?To Tirzah?The Voice of the Ancient Bard
SONGS OF INNOCENCE
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 cheer.?'Piper, pipe that song again.'?So I piped: he wept to hear.
'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;?Sing thy songs of happy cheer!'?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 vanished from my sight;?And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,?And I stained the water clear,?And I wrote my happy songs?Every child may joy to hear.
THE SHEPHERD
How sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot!?From the morn to the evening he strays;?He shall follow his sheep all the day,?And his tongue shall be filled with praise.
For he hears the lambs' innocent call,?And he hears the ewes' tender reply;?He is watchful while they are in peace,?For they know when their shepherd is nigh.
THE ECHOING GREEN
The sun does arise,?And make happy the skies;?The merry bells ring?To welcome the Spring;?The skylark and thrush,?The birds of the bush,?Sing louder around?To the bells' cheerful sound;?While our sports shall be seen?On the echoing green.
Old John, with white hair,?Does laugh away care,?Sitting under the oak,?Among the old folk.?They laugh at our play,?And soon they all say,?'Such, such were the joys?When we all--girls and boys -?In our youth-time were seen?On the echoing 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.
THE LAMB
Little lamb, who made thee??Does thou know who made thee,?Gave thee life, and bid thee feed?By the stream and o'er the mead;?Gave thee clothing of delight,?Softest clothing, woolly, bright;?Gave thee such a tender voice,?Making all the vales rejoice??Little lamb, who made thee??Does 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, and He is mild,?He became a little child.?I a child, and thou a lamb,?We are called by His name.?Little lamb, God bless thee!?Little lamb, God bless thee!
THE LITTLE BLACK BOY
My mother bore me in the southern wild,?And I am black, but O my soul is white!?White as an angel is the English child,?But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,?And, sitting down before the heat of day,?She took me on her lap and kissed me,?And, pointing to the East, began to say:
'Look on the rising sun: there God does live,?And gives His light, and gives His heat away,?And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive?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?Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
'For, when our souls