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.

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