Introduction to Songs of Innocence

William Blake

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 we 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 pluck’d 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.