SONGS OF INNOCENCE
by: William Blake (1757-1827)
- IPING
down the valleys wild,
- Piping songs of peasant 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 sang 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 stain'd the water clear,
- And I wrote my happy songs
- Every child may joy to hear.
'Songs of Innocence' is reprinted
from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin. New York:
American Book Company, 1908. |
MORE
POEMS BY WILLIAM BLAKE |
|