Blake Key Poems

Introduction (Innocence)

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. 

Introduction (Experience) 

Hear the voice of the bard!

Who present, past, and future sees;

Whose ears have heard

The Holy Word, 

That walked among the ancient trees

Calling the lapsed soul, 

And weeping in the evening dew; 

That might control

The starry pole, 

And fallen, fallen light renew!

‘O Earth, O Earth return!

Arise from out the dewy grass. 

Night is worn, 

And the morn

Rises from the slumberous mass.

‘Turn away no more;

Why wilt thou turn away?

The starry floor, 

The wat’ry shore, 

Is giv’n thee till break of day.’

The Little Girl Lost (Innocence)

In futurity 

I prophetic see

That the earth from sleep 

(Grave the sentence deep) 

Shall arise and seek 

For her maker meek, 

And the desert wild

Become a garden mild.

In the southern clime, 

Where the summer’s prime

Never fades away, 

Lovely Lyca lay.

Seven summers old

Lovely Lyca told;

She had wandered long, 

Hearing wild birds’ song. 

‘Sweet sleep come to me

Underneath this tree;

Do father, mother weep?

Where can Lyca sleep?

‘Lost in desert wild

Is your little child. 

How can Lyca sleep, 

If her mother weep?

‘If her heart does ache, 

Then let Lyca wake;

If my mothers sleep, 

Lyca shall not weep. 

‘Frowning, frowning night, 

O’er this desert bright, 

Let thy moon arise

While I close my eyes.’

Sleeping Lyca lay, 

While the beats of prey, 

Come from caverns deep, 

Viewed the maid asleep. 

The knightly lion stood

And the virgin viewed, 

Then he gambolled round

O’er the hallowed ground. 

Leopards, tigers play, 

Round her as she lay, 

While the lion old

Bowed his mane of gold,

And her bosom lick, 

And upon her neck;

From his eyes of flame

Ruby tears there came;

While the lioness

Loosed her slender dress

And naked they conveyed

To caves the sleeping maid.

The Little Girl Found (Innocence)

All the night in woe

Lyca’s parents go, 

Over valleys deep

While the deserts weep.

Tired and woe-begone, 

Hoarse with making moan, 

Arm in arm seven days

They traced the desert ways. 

Seven nights they sleep 

Among the shadows deep,

And dream they see their child

Starved in desert wild. 

Pale through pathless ways

The fancied image strays, 

Famished, weeping, weak, 

With hollow piteous shriek. 

Rising from unrest, 

…