Introduction
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 writeIn 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 songsEvery child may joy to hear.
Words in this poem
- piping a.
- Playing on a musical pipe. [From Pipe, v.]
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- piped a.
- Formed with a pipe; having pipe or pipes; tubular.
- wrote v. i.
- To root with the snout. See 1st Root. [OE. wroten. See 1st Root.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Introduction is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Project Gutenberg ebook #1934; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, Introduction, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-songs/introduction.html, id L02869.
Form and metre
Introduction is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The commonest rhyme scheme is ABAB, in 2 of the 5 stanzas; the rest vary or could not be confirmed. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB wildA · gleeB · childA · meB
- 2 -A-A lamb · cheerA · again · hearA
- 3 -A-A pipe · cheerA · again · hearA
- 4 ABAB writeA · readB · sightA · reedB
- 5 -A-A pen · clearA · songs · hearA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Piping down the valleys wild, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Piping songs of pleasant glee, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| On a cloud I saw a child, | 7 | ······· |
| And he laughing said to me: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ | 7 | ······· |
| So I piped with merry cheer. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| ‘Piper, pipe that song again.’ | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| So I piped: he wept to hear. | 7 | ······· |
| ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’ | 7 | ····/˘· |
| So I sung the same again, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| While he wept with joy to hear. | 7 | ······· |
| ‘Piper, sit thee down and write | 7 | /˘····· |
| In a book, that all may read.’ | 7 | ······· |
| So he vanished from my sight; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And I plucked a hollow reed, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And I made a rural pen, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And I stained the water clear, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And I wrote my happy songs | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Every child may joy to hear. | 7 | /˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.