William Blake’s Introductory lyric to his collection “Songs of Innocence” presents a simple and sweet anecdote about divine guidance towards meaning. This poem consists of five quatrains, the first and fourth having an ABAB rhyme scheme and the remaining three an ABCB rhyme scheme. Blake embeds religious themes in this poem, most notably in the first and second stanzas, where the speaker describes being spoken too by a child in the clouds: “On a cloud I saw a child, / And he laughing said to me: / ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb:” (3-5). The religious nature of this encounter is bolstered by the mention of a lamb by the child, and emphasis is placed upon it by its capitalization. In the middle three stanzas of the poem, the speaker is instructed not only to “‘Pipe a song about a Lamb’” (5) but also to “Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe / Sing thy songs of happy chear” (9-10) and eventually told “‘Piper sit thee down and write / In a book that all may read–’” (13-14).
At first the child is trying to get the speaker to use their pipe, which makes sense as they are clearly a piper from context: “Piping down the valleys wild / Piping songs of pleasant glee” (1-2). However in the following lines the child encourages the speaker to abandon the pipe and instead to sing and write, which I found was a clever way of developing a theme. My interpretation was that the poem suggests that it is easy to misunderstand one’s gifts and in doing so miss out their potential. The piper/speaker wasn’t doing anything wrong by piping in the valleys, but by writing down their songs and singing them, they enabled more children to share in their gift. I think it’s also important to note that the child doesn’t force the speaker to do anything. The piper had no obligation to abide by the words of the child, but their openness and selflessness enabled them to recognize their chance to do more than they currently were. This notion of taking charge of one’s own role in the world is applicable far beyond a religious context which makes the message of the poem that much more valuable to those who don’t want to look to the heavens for guidance.
I love how the “Introduction” (and the Songs of Innocence in general) manage to appeal to both children and adults alike. There’s a simplicity to it that makes it feel as if it is written for children, rather than as a school text being assigned, but at the same time it has a beauty in the language and a depth of meaning that makes it relevant to adults. It reminds me of the dedication in The Little Prince, where the author dedicates the book to his best friend as a child, in its ability to be written for children but also be enjoyed by adults.