The Lamb: Themes & Linking Poems

The Lamb: Themes & Linking Poems

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Key Quotes

  • “He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child”.
  • “I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by His name”.

Poet & Context

  • William Blake wrote and illustrated the Songs of Innocence in 1789, five years before he would add to the collection with Songs of Experience.
  • Blake was a poet, engraver, painter, and radical thinker. Significantly, he lived in a time of intense social and political change, which often reflected in his work.
  • Many scholars have attempted to analyse Blake’s complex perspective on the human relationship to divinity.

Plot

  • “The Lamb” is a direct address to a lamb. It summarises the lamb’s innocent life and then asks if the lamb knows who created it, who provides it with life and sustenance.
  • The second half of the poem reiterates the first half and affirms that the lamb’s creator is Jesus Christ.

Structure & Language Techniques

  • The poem is comprised of two mirrored stanzas, both ending with the same refrain “Little Lamb, God bless thee. Little Lamb, God bless thee.”
  • It follows the AABB rhyme scheme, characteristic of the majority of SIO poetry, including The Lamb.
  • The Lamb employs repetitions which mimic the singsong rhythm of children’s songs.

Themes & Linking Poems

Innocence and Experience

  • It offers a companion view to “The Tyger” in Songs of Experience, with the lamb embodying innocence and the tiger embodying experience.

Nature and the Divine

  • It directly addresses a lamb, symbol of innocence and purity, as a creation of God - thus linking nature and the divine.

Human and Divine

  • In its rustic, pastoral setting, “The Lamb” portrays the relationship of human and divine in a positive, harmonious manner. This contrasts with “The Tyger,” where this relationship becomes fraught and violent.

Summary

  • Stay mindful of the poem’s key themes of innocence, experience, nature, divine, and the relationship between the human and the divine. A comparison to other poems in the collection like “The Tyger”, can offer deeper insights.