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.

 

There is an evident ABAB rhythm and 5 quatrains

 

This poem is a ballad and there is a prominant nursery rhyme feel

 

Moment of miraculous conversation between a shepherd and a child, looking up to the child on the cloud enforces a sense of equality

 

starts with trochee

 

verbs in the past and present create a mode of mutuality ie ''piping'' and ''cheer''

 

use of a jumping leaping staccato syncapation on a trochiac base

 

child asks for a ''song about a lamb'' - idea of innocence

 

''wept to hear'' happiness

 

''hollow reed'' biblical imagery

 

''stained the water''- idea of blake and his engravings

 

''thy happy pipe'' personification of the pipe

 

semantic field of happiness

 

''joy to hear'' yet writing something down like Blake did with his poems makes it everlasting

 

this poem was written during the onset of the industrial revolution so the pastoral imagery used is fairly unrealistic

 

piper could represent shepherd, father or even God

 

a fitting poem placed cleverly with the songs collection, there is no evidence of reality and the corrupt world Blake was living in, merely the beauty of nature and the freedom of a child from all restrictions, following the Romantics view

 

i love this poem so much, possibly my favourite of Blake's- also this is merely a source of revision and i thought coldplayers would be grateful in me sharing such a lovely piece of literature

 

the ignorant ones will not

Don't believe the pipe................... :rolleyes:

that's an arctic monkey reference and i spit on their sweaty heads in disgust

 

i was sat in the garden at 9 o clock revising a multitude of Blake poems for my exam

 

it was somewhat enjoyable shouting out loud, quotations and annotating the meanings

 

Blake was always one to be ambiguous so you can interpret his poems several ways

 

i may create a thread on The Blossom with annotations so that coldplayers can understand what i mean in terms of ambiguous sexual undertones

 

the poem The Blossom was written for children so they would merely see it as a sparrow going into his nest, an adult reader is more likely to see otherwise

Blake was nuts.

 

.....But I love his poems anyway. :nice:

 

Isn't that the intro to songs of innocence, though? I vaguely remember the songs of experience intro being a lot sadder than that.

speaking of Blake, anyone remember Blake's 7?

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8eGUfNp6I_4

What's that?

one of the best 80's sci-fi programmes in the UK :D

one of the best 80's sci-fi programmes in the UK :D

 

Definitely. Orac stole the show............................ ;)

oh yeh i put songs of experience in the title for some reason

 

it is in fact songs of innocence

think this will be more at home in Entertainment and Arts, so i moved it.

 

i've never read any of the blake poems in this collection. i believe its on alot of exam reading lists now though?

i didn't realise this existed

 

i imagine no one goes in here usually

 

blake is on my exam list

 

but i do adore literature in general

yup, quite a few people do come in here