Introduction

==from Songs of Innocence== 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 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 vanis’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.

Illustration by Brooke.

Introduction

==from Songs of Experience== Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk’d among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might controll
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

“O Earth, O Earth, return!
“Arise from out the dewy grass;
“Night is worn,
“And the morn
“Rises from the slumberous mass.

“Turn away no more;
“Why wilt thou turn away?
“The starry floor,
“The wat’ry shore,
“Is giv’n thee till the break of day.”

Photograph from www.alissonrveldhuis.com

Blake set’s the opposing moods of these two poems through his word choice. In the Introduction from The Songs of Innocence, he uses words like “happy”, “joy”, and “merry cheer”. On the other hand, in the Introduction from The Songs of Experience, he chose words like “weeping”, “wilt”, and “fallen”. In the Songs of Innocence Introduction, the narrator plays and sings joyful songs that the child likes to hear. He writes them down so that all may feel joy to hear them. In the Songs of Experience Introduction, the poet is criticized for presenting the world in an optimistic way. The starry sky signifies rational order, which, Blake says, has fallen. Experience implies chaos, which is represented by the ocean.

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Photograph borrowed from:

http://www.alissonrveldhuis.com/JRRT_languages.html