Critical Analysis “Introduction” to the Songs of Innocence

"Introduction" to Songs of Innocence (undoubtedly a graceful poem) introduces the realm

of Innocence by telling how these poems came to be written, what they are to be about, and to

whom they are to bring joy ("Every child may joy to hear"). That is all very clear, and the

dramatic form of the poem, characteristic of most of the poems that follow, relates these things in

a way that unites the adult poet with the child. The simplicity of the words, the repititious

phrasing, and the directness of feeling belong to the speech of children; the intellectual control

and the symbolic implications are adult. This fusion of the childlike and the adult presents the

child's unfallen world as being penetrated by religious insight but given form and explicitness by

the wise innocence of a more comprehensive intelligence.

The first verses of the “Introduction” to the Songs of Innocence introduce the Poet-

Prophet to be as a person playing a pipe in open nature. Nature as opposed, itself as the opposite

of culture, embodies a state of innocence, reflecting the young man's innocence. He plays a pipe,

the most basic of wind instruments. The motives are best described as basic, bare,

unsophisticated, but with the positive connotation of a Romantic poet. The third verse introduces

a new character: a child on a cloud asking the piper to play a song about a lamb. Again, child and

lamb are symbols of youth and innocence. Arguably they could both be symbols for Christ. In

any case, the child sitting on a cloud makes clear that it is of transcendent rather than of material

nature. The child asks the piper to play, sing and later to write down his song. Note that it does

not formulate the words of the song, it is the piper's own song. The child approves of the song

when it is piped, that is, when it is pure emotion. It is through the child, the transcendent figure,

that the piper is authorized, to write the songs "Every child may joy to hear", or in other words,
reach a broad audience with it. It is significant that it is the piper's own creativity that creates the

song, that he is the author.

Only the authority to speak out about the transcendent comes from the transcendent

figure. The way the poem describes the piper's work of writing down the song is also significant.

He uses a "hollow reed" as a "rural pen", simple, bare and unsophisticated as he himself, alluding

to the first stanza's motif of innocence. "And I stain'd the waters clear" refers to the

actual printing technique used to reproduce the text the original audience was reading. The

wording of the text and the medium carrying it express that the fictional character piper, who

was confirmed by a transcendent figure as a prophet, actually created the physical text at hand,

thereby assuming a great deal of prophetic authority.

The introductory poems to each series display Blake’s dual image of the poet as both a

“piper” and a “Bard.” As man goes through various stages of innocence and experience in the

poems, the poet also is in different stages of innocence and experience. The pleasant lyrical

aspect of poetry is shown in the role of the “piper” while the more somber prophetic nature of

poetry is displayed by the stern Bard. The dual role played by the poet is Blake’s interpretation

of the ancient dictum that poetry should both delight and instruct. More important, for Blake the

poet speaks both from the personal experience of his own vision and from the “inherited”

tradition of ancient Bards and prophets who carried the Holy Word to the nations.

The child and the capitalised ‘Lamb’ are both references to Christ, particularly

evoking ideas of gentleness, humility, love and innocence associated with Him. Meanwhile,

the setting in ‘valleys wild’, ‘rural’ and with ‘water clear’ also brings to mind ideas of an

unspoilt and therefore uncorrupted nature. In this poem, then, the qualities of the world of

‘Innocence’ are plainly evoked. Innocence is natural, unspoilt, and filled with gentleness and
love. The emotions expressed harmonise with this picture of an ‘Innocent’ world. ‘Pleasant

glee’ and ‘merry chear’ give rise to ‘laughing’. As the emotion grows, however, we find that

the child ‘wept with joy’.

On the other hand, opposite extremes meet in this phrase. It appeals to us as a

paradoxical truth – that opposite states of emotion tend towards each other. Paradox is a

surprisingly sophisticated, unresolvable kind of idea to find in a simple, ‘Innocent’ world.

Finally, as we have already noticed, the setting loses some of its ‘innocence’ before the

poem ends. The ‘water clear’ has been ‘stain’d’; the piper has used natural materials to

manufacture a ‘pen’, and a ‘book’ now exists which permanently records what began as the

natural expression of present happiness. The pen is ‘rural’ – a word which supposes the

existence of its antithesis, ‘urban’, and which refers to an agricultural landscape, not ‘valleys

wild’. So, in this short and simple poem we have already travelled a long way. We have

moved from ‘wild’ nature to a still gentle and comforting, but nonetheless tamed and

exploited nature, in ‘rural’; and we have moved from the expression of momentary

happiness in melody, to remembered happiness recorded in words in a ‘book’.

The crucial uncertainty in this poem is expressed by Blake’s indefinite word ‘may’ in

the final line. We are provoked to ask: how far is the world of ‘Innocence’ already an

artificial ideal, an attempt to prolong innocence and protect it from change, by writing ‘joy’

into a book? We should also notice that ‘wild’ and ‘rural’ are not the same thing: ‘wild’

encompasses all of nature, including its powerful, sometimes frightening energy; ‘rural’, on

the other hand, suggests a tamed nature. For the moment we have met only the first poem.

This presents a repetitively-reinforced impression of an ‘innocent’ world of nature, with

christlike overtones. At the same time, we have noted that there are several elements within
 the poem which imply their antithesis: this ‘innocent’ world has an opposite, or ‘contrary’

world, which is still outside the poem; but which exists just as surely as ‘urban’ exists when

the poet mentions ‘rural’.

The poem is written in ballad form, with alternate rhyming lines – suggestive of

childhood rhymes and songs. This is reinforced by the use of repetition and by imperatives

from the child that tell the piper what to do. This suggests that the child represents the spirit

of poetic inspiration which is here associated both with innocence and with the idea of the

sheep and the shepherd.

Finally, the poem is not just about the moment of joyful religion and artistic inspiration; it

is also about the process of making poetry out of such inspiration (" ... he lays his Hand upon my

Head ... ")". Here the controlling force of adult intelligence is both represented and shown in

operation. At first the inspiration is wordless, a feeling, a melody without lyrics. But the melody

is so beautiful that it must not be lost : • And again: " '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."