William Blake, The Lamb

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Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

William Blake

The Lamb (Literature To Go, p. 481)

Listen to “The Lamb,” as read by Brian Murray.

From Songs of Innocence and Experience: Listen and Learn. Recorded by permission of Dover Publications, Inc.

Considerations for Critical Thinking and Writing

  1. first response. This poem is from Blake’s Songs of Innocence. Describe its tone. How do the meter, rhyme, and repetition help to characterize the speaker’s voice?

  2. Why is it significant that the animal addressed by the speaker is a lamb? What symbolic value would be lost if the animal were, for example, a doe?

  3. How does the second stanza answer the question raised in the first? What is the speaker’s view of the creation?