Songs of Innocence and Other Poems

About this book

A child laughs beside a lamb; a nurse listens to the evening bells; a chimney sweeper dreams of release. William Blake gives small scenes the emotional depth of a much larger vision.

Songs of Innocence asks what innocence looks like in a world already marked by suffering and authority. Its deceptively simple poems draw their strength from precise images and unsettling questions. In Blake's original illuminated versions, colour and hand-drawn lettering are part of the poetry, turning the page itself into an artistic composition.