Introduction to the Songs of Innocence

By 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 he wept with joy to hear 

Piper sit thee down and write 

In a book that all may read— 
So he vanish'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.

It's a poem about a child who meets an angel on a cloud, and the angel asks the child to
sing songs of joy. he sings them then the angel ask the child to write those songs down in
a book so next generations' children can read them. the poem was narrated by William
Blake in his series of Songs of Innocence. that was a brief explanation by the way!

Blake is showing how the young boy on the cloud is a symbol of an angel and is giving a
message to piper from god. This introduction could also be interperted as the young boy
is innocence and how it evolves when you grow up.

There is a cycle evident in the way the child asks the piper to first, play the pipe; second,
sing the songs of "merry cheer"; third, write down the songs and how the piper in turn
fulfills the child's requests.  The higher position of the child as compared to the piper
(child sitting on a cloud while piper walks down a valley) could possibly refer to the
cloud and the child as being an 'inspiration' for the piper; the ever changing shape of the
cloud signifies how inspiration can come in many forms.  The act of the piper writing
down the songs involve everything natural. He uses a "rural pen" made from a "hollow
reed" and writes with water. It signifies the virtue of nature and the purity of being one
with nature.

There are many possible interpretations of this poem. considering the time, there is the
shadow of the industrial revolution and the abuse of children. by using rural metaphors,
perhaps Blake suggests that only a return to nature with happy children can save society.
another option is that Blake meets his muse and he understands that he must be the voice
of those who cannot speak: dead children, the lower classes, the poor, and the dead.
while this is still a song filled with pastoral and innocent images, allusion to religion (the
Lamb), it also foreshadows later poems such as Tyger Tyger with its cynical allusion to
the same.
the ambiguity in the poem, \"stained the water clear\" which may be that writing with the
pure water will make for pure words, or indeed, cleaning his ink till all impurities are
gone and the water comes up clear. either way, Blake wishes to speak only words of
purity and clarity, give joy to children by being their mouthpiece- again the \"songs
every child may joy to hear\" goes beyond pretty songs, and includes having an advocate