Page 270 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

Unit 26: William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience

The Lamb can be compared to a more grandiose Blake poem: The Tyger in Songs of Experience. Notes
Text
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Poetic Structure
This poem has a simple rhyme scheme : AA BB CC DD AA AA EF GG FE AA
The layout is set up by two stanzas with the refrain: “Little Lamb who made thee?/Dost thou know
who made thee?”
In the first stanza, the speaker wonders who the lamb’s creator is; the answer lies at the end of the
poem. Here we find a physical description of the lamb, seen as a pure and gentle creature. In the
second stanza, the lamb is compared with the infant Jesus, as well as between the lamb and the
speaker’s soul. In the last two lines the speaker identifies the creator: God.

Summary
The poem begins with the question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” The speaker, a child, asks the
lamb about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its
“clothing” of wool, its “tender voice.” In the next stanza, the speaker attempts a riddling answer to
his own question: the lamb was made by one who “calls himself a Lamb,” one who resembles in his
gentleness both the child and the lamb. The poem ends with the child bestowing a blessing on the
lamb.

Detailed Analysis
Blake asks if we know who gave us life and made us eat this sweet, sweet grass as we roam through
fields and next to streams. He asks if we know who gave us our “clothing wooly bright” and our
pleasant voices.

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