The Lamb by William Blake
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
THE LAMB(Songs of Innocence)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, wooly, 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!
William Blake (1757-1827) belonged to the period of romanticism. He wrote Songs of Innocence which was his first illuminated books published in 1789. He was a poet but also a painter. For each poem included in this work he made a picture. The most common feature in this poems is that the speakers are a children. The poem that I will talk about here is "The Lamb". In this poem we can see that the speaker who is a child, is comparing himself and is comparing a Lamb with Jesus Christ, but he does it because he is a child and he is pure as Jesus Christ. And also we can see that the child is praising Lord Jesus Christ.
This poem is composed by two stanzas of ten lines each one. The speaker is a child and he is talking to a lamb. The form of the poem is aabbccddee.
The poem begins with five questions:
"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, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?"
But the importance of these questions is that they are not only questions. Through these questions the speaker is praising the lamb when he talks about the clothing, and the tender voice. Besides he is praising the stream and the prairie in which the lamb is.
Then the five questions have answer:
"Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,"
Here the speaker refers to Lord Jesus Christ. In the Bible we have the reference in the Gospel according to John chapter 1 verse 29 where it says: "On the morrow he John the Baptist sees Jesus coming to him, and says, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". But not only that. With this sentence he gives answer to the question "Who made thee?" and the speaker gives the idea that Lord Jesus Christ has existed since before the beginning of the world. If we read carefully in the Bible, the Gospel according to John chapter 1 verses 1 and 14 we can see the same idea presented by Blake. The Bible says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth".
Then the poem gives us the features of Jesus Christ:
" He is meek, and he is mild;"
But then is where the speaker thinks it is a honor to be called as him:
"He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb.
We are called by his name."
The speaker tells us about the coming of Jesus to earth and in a certain way he compares himself and the lamb with Lord Jesus Christ in the way they are innocent and pure as Christ was. In the Old Testament we see that the in the sacrifices that Jews made for God, the condition was that the animal had to be a lamb of one year without defects. It gives the idea of perfection. Jesus was the perfect Lamb because he was pure and innocent as a child and as a lamb. So the child who is the speaker of this poem compares his purity and his innocence with Jesus' ones.
Another important aspect that I can mention in order to say that he is comparing them with Christ is that we can find the features given in the first stanza which were applied to the lamb, we can applay them now to Lord Jesus Christ.
When he says "clothing of delight" he says that the lamb is soft and that we can find delight in him. We can apply this feature to Jesus Christ. When the poem says "tender voice, making all the vales rejoice" it refers to Lord Jesus Christ when he calm the storm with his words. We can find it in the Bible in Matthew 8. 23-27 or Mark 4. 35-41 or Luke 8. 22-25.
Finally I can say that the title of the poem is not referring to the animal that the child is talking to, but is referring to Jesus Christ, and the prays are for him. Here we can see that the innocence of a child can be compared with Lord Jesus Christ because they have not sin and they are pure and perfect and I think it is the intention of the author when he wrote this collection of poems called Songs of Innocence in which the speakers are innocent children that reflects purity, perfection and innocence.
Marisol Rey Castillo © 2001.
