Songs of Innocence

Songs of Innocence

Introduction

This poem presents Blake as the piper with the child as his guide and his audience. Blake was a musician who often used music alongside his poems.

The poem begins with the piper making music about a lamb. He sings the same song with the words and finally writes the lyrics down so that ‘every child’ would be able to listen to them.

The poem is written in ballad form with alternate rhyming lines (like a nursery rhyme). The repetition from the child tells the piper what to do (how a child would normally act).

The piper is also shown as a Shepard with his sheep. He is portrayed as naked, implying his innocence. This idea has connotations of Jesus as the lamb and the child who was god-made-man. Introduction has a semantic field with many words symbolising nature and happiness, ‘laughing’ ‘pleasant glee’ ‘merry cheer’ ‘happy pipe’ ‘wept with joy’. All of these are also presented in his other poems.

There is a hint of a darker future when the piper starts to write. He ‘satins the water clear’. Water = life and purity.

The Echoing Green

This poem has pastoral and idyllic images. The poet uses sounds in the first stanza to present the happy innocence of childhood. The sunrise represents youth and immaturity. The ‘merry bells’ = birds which sing in cheerfulness. Stanza one has a sematic field of happiness such as ‘make happy’ ‘merry bells’ ‘welcome’ ‘cheerful sounds’ our sports’ these phrases suggest that childhood only consists of play.

The sun rises on a green field where birds sing and children play. As they play, elderly viewers laugh at them and reminisce on when they were young, and playful. Eventually, the children grow tired as the sun sets. They all return back to their mothers so they can rest.88

The poem consists of three ten-line stanzas, each composes of five rhyming couplets.

Stanza one focuses on the children playing in the morning

Stanza two – Older people recalling their youthful pleasures (afternoon). Spring is still here in stanza two but it is not as vibrant and exciting as the first stanza. Already, the flowers have faded possibly suggesting endings (to life?). Nevertheless the elderly people still ‘laugh at play’. The tone of the stanza is not meant to be sad. The idea of older people still being around shows the persistence of life.

The oak tree that stands in the green is a symbol of strength and security.

Stanza three – takes place in the evening, as the children begin to tire. The ‘echoing’ green becomes the darker side of spring. Even though spring is a fun, joyful time of year, it must come to an end to get ready for the cold gloomy autumn and winter.

Similarly, there will always be young people to celebrate the joy in the world, but every child eventually matures into an adult who can only remember what it was like to be young and energetic.

It is joyful poem, celebrating spring (the green fields, chirping birds and young children playing)

The idea of ‘echoing’ suggest that the spring scene will play out again and again in the future.

The Lamb

Blake uses a child as the narrator of this poem. The child asks the questions and then answers them. The questions are interconnected and repetitive. They are all quite basic and simple – ‘who made thee?’ this addresses the most important ideas about where human life came from (which is very interesting for a child to ask). By putting this question into the mouth of an innocent child, addressing that most creatures (a lamb) are innocent shows that children are often very upfront and direct. They go to the heart of existence because they do not understand where life has come from or how complicated the understanding of it is. The adult’s reaction the question is ‘where did I come from?’ the answer given by the child equally shows innocence – the lamb was made by he who ‘calls himself the lamb’ (Jesus maybe?). ‘He is meek and mild’ almost compares to Christmas carols about Jesus and his birth.

Blake himself had the ability to see things from a childlike viewpoint (as he shows in this poem). He argues for the need of imagination and simplicity of a child to guide light though the dark world. The world of experience is absent from ‘The Lamb’. The first stanza is full of images of Nature, ‘by the stream’ and of happiness ‘clothing of delight’ ‘tender voice’. The physical environment of the lamb is characterised by life, food, ‘clothing’ and gentle noises. The steam is the water of life and the meadows and valleys are made for the lambs and children to play on.

In the second stanza when the child answers the question ‘who made thee?’ there is movement between realism and spiritual as the child mentions Jesus as the creator of everything (the lamb and the child him/herself). The poem finishes on a short, childlike prayer, ‘Little Lamb, God bless thee.’ The Lamb can be compared to a child’s prayer or hymn due to its simplistic rhyming and rhythm. The use of assonance supports this idea (it could be sung to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star)

By repeating the pronoun ‘thee’, a feeling of familiarity and closeness between the child and lamb is given.

Blake’s own religious views centre on Jesus and his relationship with humanity. He believed that both we and Jesus were human and divine. He saw Jesus as the figure that put forgiveness and love in the Christian faith. The emphasis on the lamb In Songs of Innocence is a reminder that Jesus was the saviour who sacrificed his life for our sins.

The Chimney Sweeper

The simple direct narrative comes from a child. Chimney Sweepers had a miserable experience (along with children in factories, mines etc.). There were a lot of them because almost every house had a chimney. Most chimney sweepers were generally young children because they were small enough. It was a horrible job meaning that they were covered in soot, had permanently inflamed eyes, burns from the hot bricks and unhealed sores. Many were left crippled and had their lungs filled with soot. If they did not cooperate, they were beaten, or fires were lit underneath them to force them up the chimney. Blake explored the society that could treat small children in such a way for money! Parents would even sell their children to a master.

In this poem we see Blake use satire to express his anger. The poem is a simple story told by a chimney sweeper and his viewpoint that the reader sees. The child talks about how his mother died when he was young and how his father sold him before he could even speak.

‘Weep weep weep weep’ shows that it is all he does. Literally, the words suggest the child sweeping. It also sounds like a small bird, which emphases the vulnerability of the child.

‘Your chimney’s I sweep’ points a finger at the reader with the pronoun ‘your’.

‘In soot I sleep’ shows how the children have no escape from the conditions of the chimney.

The tale of ‘Little Tom Dacre’, personalises the narrative, giving an identity to this child sweep which ensures that the audience are aware of the boys as individuals. Tom cries when his head is shaved. His hair is described as ‘curl’d like a lambs back’ which compares him to an innocent little lamb or possibly, it could represent him being sacrificed.

‘The soot cannot spoil your white hair’ contrasts the angelic nature of a child with the darkness of the soot, or possibly the evil of those who take advantage of him.

‘Lock’d up in coffins of black’ represents the claustrophobic dark chimneys and the death like feeling they endure every day. He dreams of an angel with ‘a bright key’ who opens the coffin and saves them. Then they find themselves in heaven running around over ‘a green plain’. This symbolises the change in their condition which is what Blake wants for all children. It also shows the children as ‘naked and white’ which represents them at a state of innocence, having washed off their soot and dirt.

The Divine Image

Blake focuses on his relationship with God in this poem. The title reflects the Christian belief that mankind was made in the image of Jesus. He uses ‘mercy, pity, peace and love’ which are the qualities human beings value most in each other and in God. These human traits appeal in their distress of need (similar to a charity television advert). Blakes hatred for injustice and suffering lets him remind the reader that those who believe in God must also care and believe in their neighbour.

‘For Mercy has a human heart

Pity a human face:

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.’

Blake then makes it clear that these virtues are universal because ‘every man of every clime’ who offers up prayers in their misery, offers them to the human form in its divine shape, i.e. God. If all humans share this divinity, then they must love and respect each other! You cannot discriminate between different races and religions, because everyone is human and they all share the same divinity and all have the same virtues of ‘Mercy, Love and Pity’.

It is a song of innocence because it presents a vision of the possibility of heaven/paradise on earth if everyone respected each other and follow the virtues.

This poem’s metres has four stresses in the first line, followed by three stresses in the second and the rhyme scheme is ABCB. The repetition of the qualities ‘Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love’ is reinforced by a beat that refers to nursery songs and rhymes and reminds the reader of children.

Holy Thursday

Blake once again uses a simple nursery rhyme style to create a picture of innocence and natural appreciation. Many children, ‘their innocent faces clean’ walk into Saint Paul’s cathedral for a ‘Holy Thursday’ service. Blake describes the children as ‘multitudes’. The children are likened to ‘flowers’, ‘lambs’ and angels in their innocence. Blake gives the impression that their goodness/innocence is visible. When they sing hymns it sounds like a ‘mighty wind’ which reaches the ‘seats of heaven’.

However, there are negative images underneath this positive vision. The children are ‘walking two & two in red & blue & green’. It introduces the idea of pressure but is contradicted by the ‘grey headed beadles’ who carry ‘wands as white as snow’. There are symbols for the beatings children would get in charity schools. The uniforms the children wore were smart but a constant reminder that they must listen to the rules otherwise they risk being kicked out onto the streets.

Charity schools were established by wealthy citizens attempting to educate the children to become useful God-fearing. They were totally reliant on donations from charities. They had to prove their usefulness and high moral standards. They did save many children from starvation but they did not encourage any ideas about freedom, individuality or rising about their station. Their education was based on the Bible and religious instruction was the most important lesson. They may also be taught basic reading, writing, maths and vocational studies. While girls would learn how to sew as well as domestic skills in preparation for becoming a servant.

This poem should be read alongside Holy Thursday Songs of Experience to fully understand the symbols and ideas behind the poem.

Nurse’s Song

The nurse is presents a kind, loving character (like a mother) who has empathy towards her children. She is the main narrator of the poem and tells us that when she hears the children playing and having fun her heart ‘is at rest within her breast’, showing that she feels happy too. However, she also wishes to protect the children, and urges them to ‘come home’ because it is beginning to go dark ‘and the dew of night arise’ when it is no longer safe to be outside. The children however, beg to stay out longer and the nurse gives in. she empathises with the children and she expresses the Romantic view of childhood, where it is ideal for children to play and be surrounded by nature for as long as possible to preserve their innocence. Although the night will be replaced with another daytime, there is a sense of upcoming darkness with represents the world of experience creeping up on the children. The wise nurses knows about the dangers and want to protect the children. This judgement is supported by the final lines, where the hills echo the children’s laughter and emphasises the connection between children and nature.

The theme of protection and guardianship is shown here in the form of the nurse. The mpasis is on the world of childhood innocence (Rousseau and the Romantics). The simple language and the ‘jogging’ style compares the poem in remniscence (yet again) to a nursery rhyme like ‘Ride a cock horse’ combines with the linerick-style rhyme scheme to create an atmosphere of joy and happiness in a world where danger is near but seems fair away.