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 chear,
Piper pipe that song again–
So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear,
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear.

Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read–
So he vanish’d from my sight,
And I pluck’d a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain’d the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs,
Every child may joy to hear

This is the introduction to Blake’s Songs of Innocence, which are coupled with the Songs of Experience and published together as one work.

It is in trochaic tetrameter: -. -. -. -(.) which is often used for nursery rhymes (e.g. JACK and JILL ran UP the HILL). So the style has a sentimental air; and the diction’s just as bad. It’s bubbling over with wide-eyed bliss, and it’s full of piping and merry cheer and joy. (Some of it’s a little idiotic sounding — “the water clear”? Oh, yes, isn’t it marvelous that the water is clear?) In any case, if anyone thinks there’s any value in this fluff in and of itself, please keep it to yourself.

But against this background of sentimentality, it seems to me there’s something really interesting going on. The shepherd, since he is in the first person, can best be taken as Blake himself. He begins as a simple minstrel boy. Now, the laughing child on the cloud is an important image. The cloud is a clear sign of divinity, so the first thing that comes to mind is that this is the baby Jesus. This is supported by the fact that Blake mentions the baby Jesus elsewhere in the Songs of Innocence (The Lamb, Cradle Song). The baby Jesus is characterized by two things. First, as mentioned, the infant is divine; God is being specifically conceived of as a little child in the Songs of Innocence. Second, the infant’s nature is to be joyful; even before the minstrel begins his singing, the babe is laughing on his little cloud.

Here I think it’s important to understand that Blake wasn’t a traditional Christian. He probably didn’t believe in the trinity as most Christians do. For him, Jesus was not so much God the Son, as God the Man. He was, if you know anything about Hinduism, like an avatar. So the babe’s physical appearance does not symbolizes the nature of God the Son (in whom Blake didn’t believe). Rather, for the purposes of the Songs of Innocence, Blake is portraying the the one-personed God as childlike and joyful.

Anyway. This child-God makes three requests of the minstrel, one after another. First, he asks the minstrel to pipe a song about a Lamb. This capitalization of the L is significant. It suggests that the child-God is requesting that the minstrel pipe a song not just about any old lamb, but about the Lamb of God; the child-God himself. He’s asking the minstrel to make music for him and about him (how you’d pipe a song about a lamb is beyond me, but whatever). The child-God’s second request is that the minstrel put this song to words, and then sing it. Note that the child is very touched by both the piping and the singing — this kind of open emotion would have been approved of by the Romantics.*

The third and final request of the child-God is for the minstrel is to write a book with happy songs for everyone to read. Think about this one last one; the child-God is asking the minstrel to compose songs expressing the child-God’s nature for the world. In this commission, the minstrel becomes a prophet. And so this poem establishes what a prophet’s function is — what Blake’s function is — from the point of view of the Songs of Innocence. It demonstrates the point of the rest of the Songs of Innocence: to express the divine nature, which is childlikeness and joy. It’s a key and a lens to the whole rest of the work.

Since Blake was a masterful artist and symbolist, it’s worth taking a look at his illustration to his poem. I’ve linked it for you here. The shepherd raises his eyes to the child-God on his cloud, who shines heavenly light down on the face of the shepherd. The shepherd’s sheep are in the background; on the left is a tree, and on the right are two trees entwined. I don’t understand the symbolism of the trees; any insight would be appreciated.

Anyhow, hope you were interested.

*I’m not sure Blake can be considered as a Romantic himself, although his thoughts on Romanticism were mostly supportive. Regardless, though, I think here he’s not trying so much to sell Romanticism, as to identify it with Innocence.