Work record

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

William Blake

1789–1794 · 18th Century · Poetry · English

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Abstract

Written: Innocence 1789; combined with Experience 1794
Setting: Late eighteenth-century London; London, England, and pastoral scenes
Author: William Blake
Country: Kingdom of Great Britain
Language: English
Genre: Lyric poetry collection
Form: Two series of short songs in simple stanzas, originally etched and hand-coloured
Recommended: Grades 5–12 (Short lyrics; some dark social poems in Experience.)

Background. A London engraver, Blake invented his own way of etching words and pictures on copper and coloured each copy by hand with his wife. The first series appeared in 1789 and the darker companion five years later.

Content. In the first group a shepherd-musician sings at a child's request of lambs, a little African boy, a sweep's dream of release, charity children in a cathedral and a God found in mercy and love. The second group answers with a prophetic voice: the same cathedral scene now seems a scandal, another sweep accuses his churchgoing parents, a rose is secretly destroyed, a burning beast raises the question of its Creator, and the city's streets ring with misery.

Form. Short rhymed lyrics in ballad and hymn-like stanzas.

Themes. Childhood trust, the fallen world, social injustice and Christ the Lamb. The paired titles invite comparison: a chimney sweep, a charity procession, a nurse's song and an introduction appear in both series, seen first with trust and then with protest. The collection asks how faith in a loving Creator can survive the sight of so much suffering among the poor.

Reception. Ignored in his day, the songs became beloved after Victorian admirers championed Blake.

For students. Use pairs in grades 6-12; preview the experienced poems for darker themes.

Main characters

The piper: Singer of Innocence
The Bard: Voice of Experience
Child speakers: Including the chimney-sweepers

Summary

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, is William Blake's collection of short lyrics, first issued as Songs of Innocence in 1789 and combined with Songs of Experience in 1794. Blake printed the poems himself by relief etching on copper plates, then coloured each page by hand with his wife Catherine, so that every poem is also a picture; this edition gives the text alone. Songs of Innocence opens with a piper who, at the request of a child on a cloud, pipes a song about a lamb and then writes his songs in a book that every child may joy to hear. The poems that follow are spoken mostly by children or by loving adults: The Lamb, in which a child tells a lamb that its maker is Christ, who calls Himself a Lamb; The Little Black Boy, The Chimney-Sweeper, in which a little sweep dreams of an angel freeing the boys from their coffins of soot; The Divine Image, which finds God in Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love; Holy Thursday, describing charity children singing in St Paul's; and the Cradle Song, Night and On Another's Sorrow. Songs of Experience answers these with a darker voice. The Bard calls fallen Earth to awake; Holy Thursday asks whether it is holy to see babes reduced to misery in a rich land; the experienced Chimney-Sweeper complains that his parents have gone to church to praise God while he labours; The Sick Rose is destroyed by an invisible worm; The Tiger asks whether He who made the lamb made the fearful beast; London hears the mind-forged manacles in every cry; and A Poison Tree shows how hidden anger grows into murder. The two series are meant to be read together: innocence is not ignorance but trust, and experience exposes the cruelty of a society that exploits children while claiming to be Christian. Blake's own faith was intense and unconventional, but the Songs draw constantly on the Bible and on the image of Christ the Lamb. They are among the most widely taught poems in English and an ideal introduction to the art of reading paired poems against each other.

Virtues in this work

Charity: The Divine Image finds God in Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love.
Justice: Experience protests the exploitation of children.

Plot or Argument

Introduction (Innocence)
The piper is asked by a child to pipe a song about a lamb and to write it down.
Songs of Innocence
The Lamb, The Little Black Boy, The Chimney-Sweeper, The Divine Image, Holy Thursday and other songs of trust.
Introduction (Experience)
The Bard calls fallen Earth to arise from her long night.
Songs of Experience
Holy Thursday, The Chimney-Sweeper, The Sick Rose, The Tiger, London and A Poison Tree expose a fallen world.

Characters

The piper, speaker
Singer of the Songs of Innocence.
The Bard, speaker
Prophetic voice of the Songs of Experience.
The chimney-sweepers, children
Boys sold into dangerous labour.
The child, speaker
The innocent voice of The Lamb and other songs.

Lessons

Reading pairs
Many poems have partners in the other series. Meaning grows when they are read together.
- Compare the two Chimney-Sweeper poems.
- Compare The Lamb and The Tiger.
- What does each pair show about innocence and experience?
Related across the library
- The Quiet American, Lesson: Innocence is not harmless
  Innocence is not harmless. Pyle's danger lies in the union of personal decency with abstract political certainty. Greene teaches that innocence backed by power can evade responsibility for the bodies it harms.
- Worcester v. Georgia, Lesson: A missionary's conscience
  A missionary's conscience. Worcester and Butler could have avoided prison by taking Georgia's oath or leaving the Nation, as most of their fellow missionaries did. They refused, believing the oath would deny the rights the Cherokee held under federal treaties and abandon the people they served. Their decision to remain imprisoned rather than accept a pardon on the state's terms kept the case alive.
- The Power and the Glory, Lesson: Bodies are where theology becomes real
  Bodies are where theology becomes real. Hunger, drink, fever, fear and execution prevent faith from becoming abstract. Greene's Catholicism is incarnational: the soul is tested through weak flesh.
- Lex, Rex, The Preface
  Whether the King of Scotland be an absolute Prince having prerogatives above Laws and Parliaments Negatur p The King of Scotland subject to Parliaments by the fundamentall Lawes Acts and constant practises of Parliaments ancient and late in Scotland p seq The King of Scotlands Oath at his Coronation p A pretended absolute povver given to K Iames upon respect of personall indowments no ground of absolutenesse to the King of Scotland p By Lawes and constant practises the Kings of Scotland subject to Lawes and Parl...
- The Devils, Lesson: The fathers' responsibility
  The fathers' responsibility. Stepan Trofimovitch's vague liberalism helped produce his son's nihilism.
Christ the Lamb
The Lamb answers its own question: the Maker is the One who calls Himself a Lamb.
- Who made the lamb, according to the child?
- Read John 1:29. How does it shed light on the poem?
- Why might Blake choose a child as speaker?
Related across the library
- The Lamb, Lesson: Christ the Lamb
  Christ the Lamb. The poem's answer is Jesus, the Lamb of God, who became a child.
- The River War, Lesson: Disease as the unglamorous enemy
  Disease as the unglamorous enemy. The cholera epidemic of 1896 killed more of the Dongola force than the enemy did, and Churchill writes that the insidious attack of disease appals the boldest. Malaria, liver abscess and fever recur throughout. The history reminds readers that the real cost of nineteenth-century campaigns was medical.
- The River War, Lesson: Triumphalism and its own evidence
  Triumphalism and its own evidence. Churchill calls Omdurman the most signal triumph of science over barbarians, yet the same pages describe crawling wounded, a shelled tomb and mangled families. Reading the book closely means noticing how imperial prose records what it justifies. The gap between verdict and description is where modern readers do their work.
- The Lamb, Summary
  The Lamb is a short poem from William Blake's Songs of Innocence, first etched and printed in 1789 and later bound with Songs of Experience in 1794, where its partner poem is The Tiger. It has two stanzas of ten lines each, spoken by a child to a lamb in a meadow. In the first stanza the child asks a series of questions: Little lamb, who made thee? Who gave you life and bid you feed by the stream and over the meadow, who gave you your clothing of delight, soft, woolly and bright, and such a tender voice that mak...
- The Lamb, Lesson: Question and answer
  Question and answer. The poem is built like a catechism, with a question stanza and an answer stanza.
Social conscience
Experience exposes child labour and poverty in a Christian nation.
- What does London hear in every cry?
- Who is blamed in the experienced Chimney-Sweeper?
- How should Christians respond to such injustice?
Related across the library
- The Social Cancer (Noli Me Tangere), Full Text
  upon the fear of God as administered by them reconciling the people to their subjection by inculcating the Christian virtues of patience and humility When any recalcitrants refused to accept the new order or later showed an inclination to break away from it the military forces acting usually under secret directions from the padre made raids in the disaffected parts with all the unpitying atrocity the Spanish soldiery were ever capable of displaying in their dealings with a weaker people After sufficient punishme...
- The Sceptical Chymist, Full Text
  of what some Writers deliver makes it very difficult to be understood so the Unfaithfulness of too many others makes it unfit to be reli'd on For though unwillingly Yet I must for the truths sake and the Readers warne him not to be forward to believe Chymical Experiments when they are set down only by way of Prescriptions and not of Relations that is unless he that delivers them mentions his doing it upon his own particular knowledge or upon the Relation of some credible person avowing it upon his own experience...
- Worcester v. Georgia, Lesson: A missionary's conscience
  A missionary's conscience. Worcester and Butler could have avoided prison by taking Georgia's oath or leaving the Nation, as most of their fellow missionaries did. They refused, believing the oath would deny the rights the Cherokee held under federal treaties and abandon the people they served. Their decision to remain imprisoned rather than accept a pardon on the state's terms kept the case alive.
- Carmilla, Full Text
  acquaintance of mine She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask rendered practicable she talked like a friend she admired her dress and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty She amused her with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom and laughed at my poor child s fun She was very witty and lively when she pleased and after a time they had grown very good friends and the young stranger lowered her mask displaying a remarkably beautiful face I had never seen it before ne...
- The Tyger, Lesson: Two contrary states
  Two contrary states. The Tyger answers The Lamb of Songs of Innocence. Blake sets innocence and experience side by side without letting either cancel the other, and the line about him who made the Lamb asks the reader to hold both creatures together under one maker.

Context

Blake wrote in London during the early Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution; boys as young as four or five were sold as chimney sweeps, and charity children were paraded on Holy Thursday at St Paul's.

Composition

Songs of Innocence etched and printed by Blake in 1789; the combined Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794, in very small hand-coloured runs. This text is the 1901 R. Brimley Johnson edition.

Reception

Little known in Blake's lifetime, the Songs were rediscovered by the Victorians, especially after Gilchrist's Life of Blake (1863), and are now among the most taught poems in English.

Innocence / Experience Childhood Faith / Religion Class / Society Nature / Landscape Guilt Sin

Comparisons

The Tyger
The most famous of the Songs of Experience, already in the library.
Lyrical Ballads
Wordsworth and Coleridge's contemporary experiment in simple song.
Psalm 23
The Good Shepherd psalm behind the pastoral imagery of Innocence.
The Pilgrim's Progress
Bunyan's allegory, a favourite of Blake, who illustrated it.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“Piping down the valleys wild,”

— William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Introduction (Innocence) (Gutenberg #1934: Songs of Innocence and of Experience).Quote card

Parmenides, Stephanus 135b-c
he will have nothing on which his mind can rest; and so he will utterly destroy the power of reasoning Having raised every objection, Parmenides warns that denying the Forms altogether would make thought impossible.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Full Text
thou then counsel me to fall in love LUCETTA Ay madam so you stumble not unheedfully JULIA Of all the fair resort of gentlemen That every day with parle encounter me In thy opinion which is worthiest love LUCETTA Please you repeat their names I ll show my mind According to my shallow simple skill JULIA What think st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour LUCETTA As of a knight well-spoken neat and fine But were I you he never should be mine JULIA What think st thou of the rich Mercatio LUCETTA Well of his wealth but of h...
The Rule of St Benedict, Chapter 27
the Lord Let him take his meals alone in the measure and at the hour which the Abbot shall consider suitable for him He shall not be blessed by those who pass by nor shall the food that is given him be blessed CHAPTER On Those Who Without an Order Associate With the Excommunicated Mar July Nov If any brother presumes without an order from the Abbot to associate in any way with an excommunicated brother or to speak with him or to send him a message let him incur a similar punishment of excommunication CHAPTER How...
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Full Text
I think she was rather glad there was no one listening this time as it didn t sound at all the right word but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is you know Please Ma am is this New Zealand or Australia and she tried to curtsey as she spoke fancy curtseying as you re falling through the air Do you think you could manage it And what an ignorant little girl she ll think me for asking No it ll never do to ask perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere Down down down There was nothing else to do...
The Tyger, Lesson: Two contrary states
Two contrary states. The Tyger answers The Lamb of Songs of Innocence. Blake sets innocence and experience side by side without letting either cancel the other, and the line about him who made the Lamb asks the reader to hold both creatures together under one maker.

Frequently cited

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night,”

— William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Tiger (Gutenberg #1934: Songs of Innocence and of Experience).Quote card

Travels in Alaska, Preface (by William Frederic Badè)
I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer From a letter of Muir's youth that Badè quotes at the opening of the book.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Lesson: Faith cannot be forced
Faith cannot be forced. The preamble argues from the nature of the mind and from the example of the author of Christianity, who chose not to spread his religion by coercion. Punishments and penalties, it says, produce not belief but outward pretence and meanness of spirit.
I Will Fight No More Forever, Harper's Weekly text, sentences 13-15
Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. The close, addressed to Joseph's own chiefs.
The Tyger, Lesson: The question that is the poem
The question that is the poem. The Tyger is built almost entirely of questions, and none is answered. Blake teaches by withholding: the reader is left inside the speaker's awe, made to feel how hard it is to see one Creator behind both lamb and tiger.
The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture I: Religion and Neurology
By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots James adapts the Gospel saying into his empiricist criterion for judging religious experience.

Frequently cited

“Did He who made the lamb make thee?”

— William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Tiger (Gutenberg #1934: Songs of Innocence and of Experience).Quote card

The Lamb, Stanza 1
Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, The opening question.
The Tyger, Stanza 5 (Lines 17-20)
When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? The cosmic stanza links the tiger to the Lamb of Songs of Innocence and asks whether one Creator made both.
The Lamb, Summary
The Lamb is a short poem from William Blake's Songs of Innocence, first etched and printed in 1789 and later bound with Songs of Experience in 1794, where its partner poem is The Tiger. It has two stanzas of ten lines each, spoken by a child to a lamb in a meadow. In the first stanza the child asks a series of questions: Little lamb, who made thee? Who gave you life and bid you feed by the stream and over the meadow, who gave you your clothing of delight, soft, woolly and bright, and such a tender voice that mak...
Shall Turkey Live or Die?, Lesson: A brother man, not a brother Christian
A brother man, not a brother Christian. The pamphlet's central moral distinction is that the Turk is owed justice because he is a man, whatever one thinks of his religion. The author grounds the rights of persons and states in a natural law that Christ came 'not to destroy but to fulfil'. This is a strong example of a Christian writer refusing to let religious difference cancel common justice.
The Lamb, Lesson: Question and answer
Question and answer. The poem is built like a catechism, with a question stanza and an answer stanza.

Frequently cited

“The mind-forged manacles I hear:”

— William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, London (Gutenberg #1934: Songs of Innocence and of Experience).Quote card

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, Full Text
in public school Parents arrange for registered tutors to provide assistance to their children and then submit bills for those services to the State for payment D C Students from low-income families receive of the amount charged for such assistance up to All other students receive of that amount B The number of tutorial assistance grants offered to students in a covered district must equal the number of tuition aid scholarships provided to students enrolled at participating private or adjacent public schools A T...
Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy), Summary
Peter and Wendy, the 1911 novel that grew out of J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan, opens in the London nursery of the Darling family: Mr. Darling, a clerk anxious about money and dignity; Mrs. Darling, who tidies her children's minds each night; Wendy, John and Michael; and Nana, a Newfoundland dog who serves as their nurse. Mrs. Darling finds the name Peter in her children's thoughts and later sees a strange boy at the nursery window; Nana snaps the window shut on his shadow. One evening Mr. Darling plays a trick...
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Source
THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS AND CONFESSIONS OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER WRITTEN BY HIMSELF WITH A DETAIL OF CURIOUS TRADITIONARY FACTS AND OTHER EVIDENCE BY THE EDITOR By James Hogg THE EDITOR'S NARRATIVE It appears from tradition as well as some parish registers still extant that the lands of Dalcastle or Dalchastel as it is often spelled were possessed by a family of the name of Colwan about one hundred and fifty years ago and for at least a century previous to that period That family was supposed to have been a branch of t...
The Burgess Bird Book for Children, Full Text
asked Peter a bit timidly Not such a deep one replied Striped Chipmunk They hang it between the twigs near the end of a branch but they bind it more closely to the branch and it isn't deep enough to swing as Goldy's does Peter had just opened his mouth to ask another question when there was a loud sniffing sound farther up along the old stone wall He didn't wait to hear it again He knew that Bowser the Hound was coming Good-by Striped Chipmunk This is no place for me whispered Peter and started for the dear Old...
Wisconsin v. Yoder, Full Text
a crime if committed by an adult was entitled to procedural safeguards contained in the Sixth Amendment In Tinker v Des Moines School District U S we dealt with year-old year-old and year-old students who wore armbands to public schools and were disciplined for doing so We gave them relief saying that their First Amendment rights had been abridged Students in school as well as out of school are persons' under our Constitution They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect just as they them...

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The two Introductions.
Paired poems with the same title.
The child speakers of Innocence.
The questions of The Tiger.
The accusations of London and the experienced Chimney-Sweeper.

Key terms and names

Innocence: For Blake, a state of trust and joy, not simple ignorance.
Experience: The state of the soul that has met cruelty, fear and oppression.
Illuminated printing: Blake's method of etching text and image together and colouring by hand.
Contrary states: Blake's subtitle: the two series show opposite conditions of the soul.
Chimney sweep: A child employed to climb and clean chimneys, often in danger.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension What does the child in the Introduction ask the piper to do?
Comprehension Who made the lamb, according to The Lamb?
Interpretation How do the two Chimney-Sweeper poems differ in their view of the boys' suffering?
Interpretation What are mind-forged manacles?
Interpretation Why might The Tiger ask so many questions?
Big Question Can one keep innocence after meeting experience?

Faith Connections

John 1:29 (Scripture)
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Matthew 19:14 (Scripture)
Suffer little children to come unto me: Innocence's trust.
Isaiah 1:17 (Scripture)
Seek justice, relieve the oppressed: Experience's protest.
Fall and redemption (Great Conversation)
The two states mirror the biblical story of innocence lost and grace offered.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Songs spoken in innocence show trust in a loving God and in one another; songs of experience expose fear, cruelty and hypocrisy; read together they show two contrary states of the soul and call readers to recover a higher innocence through mercy and love.

Rhetorical device: paired poems. Blake places poems with matching titles in the two series so that each answers the other.

Debate: Resolved: that experience is wiser than innocence.

Memory Work

Piping down the valleys wild,
Introduction (Innocence). The opening of the whole collection.

Did He who made the lamb make thee?
The Tiger. Blake's great question.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Compare one pair of poems from Innocence and Experience and show how each changes the meaning of the other.

Comparison with The Tyger: Read The Lamb and The Tiger together.

Creative Prompts

Poetry
Write a pair of poems on one subject, one innocent and one experienced.
Classroom
Display pairs of poems side by side and have students list contrasts.
Essay
Are innocence and experience opposites, or stages of one journey?

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Abstract

Main characters

Summary

Virtues in this work

Plot or Argument

Characters

Lessons

Reading pairs

Christ the Lamb

Social conscience

Context

Composition

Reception

Comparisons

Quotes

For Students

Reading Guide

Watch for

Key terms and names

Seminar Questions

Faith Connections

Logic and Rhetoric

Memory Work

Writing Prompts

Creative Prompts

Further Reading