From Songs of Experince
William Blake
1. The poem :
1. Little Lamb who made thee?
2. Dost thou know who made thee?
3. Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
4. By the stream & o'er the mead;
5. Gave thee clothing of delight,
6. Softest clothing wooly bright;
7. Gave thee such a tender voice,
8. Making all the vales rejoice!
9. Little lamb, who made thee?
10. Dost thou know who made thee?
11. Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
12. Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
13. He is called by thy name,
14. For he calls himself a Lamb:
15. He is meek & he is mild,
16. He became a little child:
17. I a child & thou a lamb,
18. We are called by his name.
19. Little Lamb God bless thee.
20. Little Lamb God bless thee.
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2. Introduction :
• The Lamb was included in The Songs of Innocence.
• It is regarded as “one of the great lyrics of English Literature.” & it’s in a form
of a dialogue between the child and the lamb.
• The poem is mixture of the Christian script & pastoral tradition.
type of poems that idealize the country life
• The poem explores the innocence of children’s understanding of God and the
natural world.
• It is often used as a children’s song even though the deeper meaning behind
the poem revolves around God’s creation of moral aspects of the natural
world as seen in the lamb.
1st stanza
1. Little Lamb who made thee
2. Dost thou know who made thee
3. Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
4. By the stream & o'er the mead;
5. Gave thee clothing of delight,
6. Softest clothing wooly bright;
7. Gave thee such a tender voice,
8. Making all the vales rejoice!
9. Little lamb, who made thee?
10. Dost thou know who made thee?
A) vocabulary :
- Thee
: you
- Dost
: Do
- thou
: you
- bid
: offer
- mead
: land covered with grass
- clothing of delight
: comfortable clothes {its wool}
- bright
: white
- tender
: soft
- vales
: valleys
- rejoice
: happy
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(B) paraphrase :
1. Little Lamb who made thee?
1. The child speaks to the lamb, asking it who made it.
2. Dost thou know who made thee?
2. and whether the lamb knows
3. Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
3. who gave it life and offered it to eat
4. By the stream & o'er the mead;
4. and drink beside streams and the green land
5. Gave thee clothing of delight,
5. who made the lamb that comfortable coat
6. Softest clothing wooly bright;
6. which is made of soft white wool
7. Gave thee such a tender voice,
7. who gave it that soft gentle bleating voice
8. Making all the vales rejoice!
8. which make the surrounding valleys happy
9. Little lamb, who made thee?
10. Dost thou know who made thee
9. 10. The child asks again the same rhetorical questions: Who made the lamp
(C) figures of speech:
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- Assonance
- Alliteration
: The repetition of the vowel sound /e/ in ‘By the stream & o'er the mead’
: Little Lamp
- Personification
: 1- “Softest clothing wooly bright” the lamb is personified as having comfortable
clothes, which is actually its wool.
- Symbolism
: The lamb & the child are symbols of chastity and innocence.
- refrain
:Little Lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?
2nd stanza
11. Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
12. Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
13. He is called by thy name,
14. For he calls himself a Lamb:
15. He is meek & he is mild,
16. He became a little child:
17. I a child & thou a lamb,
18. We are called by his name.
19. Little Lamb God bless thee.
20. Little Lamb God bless thee.
{c} vocabulary :
- Thee
- meek
- mild
- thou
:
:
:
:
you
gentle
kind
you
(c) paraphrase :
11. Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
12. Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
The child excitedly offers to tell the lamb the answer.
13. He is called by thy name,
The creator has the same name as the lamb, and indeed calls himself
14. For he calls himself a Lamb:
"Lamb."
15. He is meek & he is mild,
The creator is gentle and kind.
16. He became a little child:
and that the creator was also a small child.
17. I a child & thou a lamb,
The speaker, too, is a child, and both the speaker and the lamb share the
18. We are called by his name.
name of their creator.
19. Little Lamb God bless thee.
20. Little Lamb God bless thee
• The child now excitedly offers to answer the questions that he asked in the previous stanza.
and says that he himself will tell the lamb about the Creator.
• According to him, the Creator of the Lamb is also known by the name of Lamb.
It is because the creator too calls himself a Lamb.
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• Then the child gives the reasons why the Creator {according to the poet {Jesus Christ}} calls himself a
lamb – that’s because the creator is sympathetic, gentle and calm,
• Then in the following line the child says that Christ became a little child. This line is again a
reference to the Biblical assumption or allusion.
• The speaker now reveals that he is a child saying that both the lamb and he himself are as innocent and
meek as the creator.
• In the final line, the speaker prays that God may bless it.
(C) figures of speech:
- Symbol
- Alliteration
: lamb is a symbol for the creator
: meek & he is mild
Form:
"The Lamb" consists of  2 ten-line stanzas.
This structure displays the poem as a question in the 1ststanza asking the lamb about it's creation,
feeding, clothing and delightful soft voice which makes all green land and valleys happy.
& an answer in the 2nd which is that the God created the lamb and the world.
Meter:
Many lines are written in Trochaic trimeter
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