Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/607

 WILLIAM BLAKE

500 Reeds of Innocence

)IPING down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me:

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��'Pipe a song about a Lamb'' So I piped with merry cheer.

'Piper, pipe that song again ;' So I piped, he wept to hear.

'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;

Sing thy songs of happy cheer!' So I sung the same again,

While he wept with joy to hear.

'Piper, sit thce 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.

��507 The Little Black Boy

MY mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O, my soul is white' White as an angel is the English child, But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

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