Hadiat – Songs of Innocence by William Blake “Introduction”

Hello class,

As you all know this weeks’ assigned reading were on William Blake’s Songs of Innocence & Experience. After reading a few poems It came pretty clear to me that although they come pretty short and straight forward, that is definitely not the case with most of them (at least for me.) I started by reading “Introduction” in the Songs of Innocence and after reading many of the others, I have chosen to give my insight on that poem.

The poem starts off with a piper (one who plays a pipe), and it also starts very joyous, gleeful and amusing – “Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee”. This poem is also written in first person which gives it a sense of meaning that the author himself is a part of this journey and adventure of just blissfully enjoying what he was doing. He then writes “On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’” and when I read  that he saw a “child” on a cloud I found it interesting that it was worded this way. It’s as if this child is an angelic being or some divine creature. It’s then mentioned that he was laughing and asks the piper to play a song about a “Lamb” which seemed a bit weird that the child would ask him to play a song of a lamb amongst everything else a child could be interested in. After reading this stanza entirely I figured that the child was just an image of innocence and is very affectionate to the passion the piper had playing his music. It was a simple piper who was just enjoying his time but little did he know that someone would actually really enjoy what he was passionate of doing.

In the following stanza, the child was so amused by the songs of the piper that he asked the piper to play the song again and he played with cheer. This again, shows the appreciation the child shows to the piper for his hobby and interest so much so that the child begins to tear from enjoyment. The third stanza begins with child telling the piper to drop his pipe and sing his song instead –  “‘‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer:!’’So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear.”  I found this quite interesting that the child was so fond of the music that he would like to listen to the lyrics as well as opposed to just melody of the song.

As I further read in to the poem, the child, an angelic being, an image of innocence and youth commands the piper to commit to showing everyone his passion. Rather than it being just a pastime and passion for the piper who plays the pipe on his own seldom time, he wishes that he shares it with every child. The piper then agreed to his command as he took the time to write his songs and soon share with other children.

This poem, to me, had a lot of important meanings and displayed it well. I imagined someone who does not get much attention from others and has a hobby and is very passionate about it. He loves what he does and does it for his own enjoyment maybe because he doesn’t think others will appreciate or just had no intention to. When the child appears however, it all changed because he found someone to appreciate what he did and gives his passion a meaning which inspired him to display his work publicly. To relate to our time, I see a talented and shy boy who has a remarkable skill in music and perhaps sings to himself and someone hears and him sing, appreciates him, asks him to pursue his talent and share it with others.