Introduction and overview of The Lamb by William Blake

“The Lamb” is a poem by William Blake published in Songs of Innocence in 1789.

“The Lamb” is a complementary poem to Blake’s poem The Tyger in Songs of Experience.

Like many of Blake’s works, the poem is about Christianity. The lamb is a common metaphor for Jesus Christ, who is also called “The Lamb of God” in John 1:29.

The poem is a child’s song, in the form of question and answer. The first stanza is rural and descriptive, while the second focuses on abstract spiritual matters and contains explanation and analogy.

“The Lamb” is a poem by English visionary William Blake, published in his 1789 collection Songs of Innocence. The poem sees in the figure of the lamb an expression of God’s will and the beauty of God’s creation. The poem is told from the perspective of a child, who shows an intuitive understanding of the nature of joy, and indeed, the joy of nature. In “The Lamb”, there is little of the suspicion of urban environments found elsewhere in Blake’s poetry. “The Lamb”, then, is a kind of hymn to God, praising God’s creation while also implying that humankind has lost the ability to appreciate it fully.

Speaker in The Lamb by William Blake: Child narrator and poetic voice

The speaker in the poem “The Lamb” is a child who is in awe and wonder at seeing the evidence of God’s majesty in a small and vulnerable figure of the lamb. This makes the speaker joyous, and the whole poem can be interpreted as the speaker’s hymn of praise to God. The child is able to understand/perceive the interconnectedness of God’s creation and understands how it is all an expression of God’s will.

Setting in The Lamb: Pastoral imagery and symbolic religious landscape

The poem doesn’t define its setting too clearly—the lines could ultimately be spoken anywhere. However, the first stanza conjectures an idyllic pastoral scene, describing the lamb in its ideal natural habitat. The countryside of streams and fields, sunshine and valleys. By implication, it is categorically not the industrial urban environment that Blake critiques particularly in his poem ‘London’. The lamb’s natural environment is therefore intimately linked to its happiness and the happiness that the speaker feels in observing, contemplating, and talking to the lamb.

The second stanza is more abstract in its setting, dealing philosophically with the relationship between the lamb, the speaker, the world, and God. In this sense, the setting can also be interpreted as the entirety of God’s creation—because of the poem’s view, everything in the world is connected by God’s design.

Form and structure of The Lamb: Two-stanza question-and-answer poem

The lamb has a deceptively simple form, consisting of two ten-line stanzas. The structure frames the poem’s question in the first stanza and an answer in the second one.

The first stanza poses the question to the lamb and to the poem’s readers: Who made the lamb? In other words, who created the world and all the beauty it contains?

The second stanza gives the emphatic answer: God created the lamb and the world. This stanza presents an idea of one suggesting that the lamb, the child speaker, Jesus, God, and indeed the entire world are all part of God’s creation and thereby an expression of God himself. In essence, the poem argues in favor of what’s called the teleological theory of God which is that the beauty and complexity of the world demonstrate that there is an intelligent designer behind it all.

Meter in The Lamb: Rhythmic pattern and hymn-like musical quality

The meter of “The Lamb” is extremely regular, which helps the poem feel simple and purposeful. It’s worth remembering here that Blake intended this poem and the others in Songs of Innocence to, as the name suggests, be sung. The meter thus has a lyric quality that is similar to many of the church hymns of Blake’s day.

Rhyme scheme in The Lamb: Analysis of rhyming couplets and poetic harmony

The rhyme scheme is very similar in “The Lamb” with the lines falling into rhyming couplets throughout. Each stanza follows its own series of rhymes in the form: aa bb cc dd ee.

Stanza-by-stanza commentary of The Lamb by William Blake

First stanza analysis: “Little Lamb who made thee… Dost thou know who made thee?”

The poem opens with a question which is addressed to the “lamb” that if it knows who made or created him. The question on the part of child who is the speaker, is simple but it leads to a deep message that the universe and the creatures living in it are creation of the divine being, God. It highlights Christian Gods and Christianity.

The creator gave lamb life and provided with food to survive. The lamb is described in natural environment, frolicking round stream and over the meadows. The natural or pastoral description is brought up here with lambs grazing on the pastures and are found in flocks. The lamb in its natural environment highlights the unity of lamb with nature.

Lines 5-6 recall the swaddling clothes of Jesus Christ when he was a baby and of his hair that purported to be like lamb’s wool.

The wooly covering of the lamb’s body is called ‘clothing of delight’ by the speaker because it looks lovely to the child. It is soft and bright. The lamb reflects the brightness of Jesus Christ because lamb symbolizes the saviour Jesus Christ.

Lamb have been provided with tender voice and when it cries, the valley echoes with and rejoice due to its voice. ‘Valley’ again represents the natural landscape. Lamb is in reconciliation with natural world.

Again, the first stanza ends with the opening lines. The lines are repeated because children talks by repeating the words and the speaker in the poem is a child.

Second stanza analysis: “Little Lamb I’ll tell thee… Little Lamb God bless thee”

Now, the child utters that he will tell the lamb who has made him. The readers will come to know the answer told by child despite their knowledge of the creator.

The child does not answer directly. He uses riddles to answer the question but the riddles address the Christian verses and about Jesus Christ.

“In the gospel of John, Christ is referred to as ‘Lamb of God’ who takes away the sins of the world. In Revelation XIV it is stated ‘then I looked and there was the lamb(Jesus Christ) standing on Mount Zion’. Jesus is also called meek and he is mild too because he represents the virtues of humility, compassion, sympathy, forbearance and pacifism.”

In Revelation XVII the lamb is identified with lord of lords and king of kings.

Basically, Christ is called the lamb because his life was sacrificed for restoring man to heavenly existence, which he lost due to his original sin of disobedience. A child is called or compared to Jesus Christ because of their state of purity. Christ became a child to guide humankind. In a cradle song, the mother tells her baby:

“Sweet babe in thy face Holy image I can trace Sweet babe, once like thee Thy maker lay and wept for me.”

In Gospel of Matthew it is stated: “Verily, I say unto you, ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” They are unified all together because of their common quality of innocence, the state of being uncorrupted, the ability to remain untainted from vices and move towards good and righteous. The poem ends with the child bestowing blessings on the lamb.

Major themes in The Lamb by William Blake

Theme of God and creation in The Lamb: Christian symbolism and divine design

“The Lamb” is a religious poem that marvels at the wonders of God’s creation. In the poem, a child addresses a lamb, wondering how it came to exist, before affirming that all existences comes from God. In the humble, gentle figure of the lamb, the speaker sees the beautiful evidence of God’s work. Furthermore, the lamb is not just made by God—its an expression of God, as is the speaker. Through the example of the lamb, the speaker suggests that the entire world is in fact an expression of God.

The poem is directly addressed to the lamb. Though the lamb cannot respond, its very existence is answer enough to the question “who made it”. The speaker is clearly awed by the lamb. Though the Christian God is often associated with power and might—and even, at times, violence—the lamb is none of these things. It is small, fragile, and innocent. By existing, it proves the delicate beauty of God’s creation, which is why it makes the speaker so joyful.

The poem rhetorically asks “who made thee” but everything that follows is presented as evidence that God is the creator. The first stanza depicts the lamb in its natural habitat, a beautiful pastoral scene in which the lamb is free to roam and that the lamb’s requirements are provided for him, making the lamb a symbol of freedom and uncomplicated joy.

This argues in God’s intention for all his creatures: that they live happy and joyful lives.

As the first stanza asks the question about the lamb’s existence, the second gives the clear reply. Here, the poem picks on the symbolism of the lamb. In John 1:29 in the Bible, Jesus Christ is given the title “Lamb of God”, so the poem just marvelling at the lamb itself, but also in the way in which the lamb is God, just as the Bible describes Jesus himself to be God. Both the lamb and the speaker, who is a child, are “called by his name”.

That is, in addition to being called “lamb” and whatever the “speaker” name maybe, they are both called “God”. That’s because, ultimately, everything which exists was created by God and nothing is separate from its creator. The poem thus expresses deep trust and faith in God’s work, suggesting that both the child and the lamb are safe in God’s hands. And to emphasize this sense of blissful creation, the poem ends with the speaker blessing the lamb. By extension, the poem thus blesses all of God’s creation, both praising it and expressing thanks for its existence.

“The Lamb” taken from the “Innocence” section of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, is a kind of hymn to God’s creation. In the figure of the lamb, the poet sees a symbol of all God’s works. The poem is an expression of the purity of God’s creation, untarnished by the kind of negative influences that Blake introduces in other poems.

Theme of nature in The Lamb: Pastoral beauty, harmony and natural innocence

The poem presents an idyllic pastoral scene, painting a vivid picture of the lamb frolicking in its countryside environment. The urban world is notable for its absence. Implicitly, then, the poem seeks to highlight the beauty of nature and to portray it as a powerful source of happiness and freedom.

The lamb itself is one part of nature, but its also a symbol of the freedom and happiness associated with the natural world, more generally which the poem implies can’t be found in the modern urban environment. The first stanza expresses the deep connection between nature and joy. The lamb lives among stream and meadows: these are places where nature allowed to grow and these in turn give the lamb a beautiful and free environment to live in. That’s why the lamb’s coat isn’t just “clothing” but “clothing of delight”. Nature allows the lamb to be fully itself, without restriction. That idea is behind the association of the lamb’s coat with “brightness”—this is a pristine environment without any of the misery of city.

The lamb in turn has a positive effect on its natural environment, then, are in symbiosis—a balanced and nurturing relationship that benefits them both.

This balance in turn makes the speaker happy and joyful. In the lamb’s freedom and nature’s beauty, the child sees an idyllic way of life. The child feels close to the lamb and its environment, implying that this is an instinctive relationship between human and nature too. That is, it’s the natural world that makes people joyful and free—not the restrictive, dangerous city.

Implicitly, then, the poem calls on its readers to value the relationship between humans and nature. It asks its readers to nourish and nurture that relationship in the same way that the unspoiled natural environment allows the lamb to live happily.

Theme of childhood and innocence in The Lamb: Blake’s vision of purity and spirituality

Blake famously believed that humans are born with everything they need to live lives of joy, freedom and closeness with God. By making the speaker in this poem a child, Blake argues that people need to hold onto the values childhood represents—not unlearn and rejects them through the fears and worries of adulthood. All of the poem’s joyful appreciation of the lamb, nature, and God are tied to the speaker’s childhood perspective. Childhood, then, is not a state of ignorance, but one of innate understanding.

The child refers to Jesus, pointing out that he—the saviour of humankind. He was also born into the world with all the innocence, vulnerability, and curiosity of a child. Jesus was God himself, showing that childhood is in fact something sacred.

Symbolism in The Lamb by William Blake

The lamb as a symbol of Jesus Christ, innocence and God’s creation

As well as being the star of the poem, the lamb is also an important symbol. In part, the lamb represents God’s divine creation. For the speaker, there is something so innately wonderful about the lamb that its very existence seems to celebrate God’s power. Furthermore, the lamb showcases God’s capacity for tenderness and gentleness, two traits which easily link to the idea of the Lord as loving father. Because the lamb is vulnerable, God is shown vulnerable too.

But the lamb has a long history of playing an important symbolic role in Christianity. In fact, Jesus himself is described in the Bible as the “Lamb of God”. So the lamb is not just a lamb, but Jesus/God too. Again, this reinforces the above idea of God’s capacity for kindness and vulnerability—both of which are part of Jesus.

Frequently asked questions about The Lamb by William Blake

What is the main theme of The Lamb by William Blake?

The main theme of The Lamb is God’s creation, innocence, faith, and the divine connection between humanity, nature, and God.

Why is the lamb a symbol of Jesus Christ?

The lamb symbolizes Jesus Christ because the Bible refers to Jesus as the “Lamb of God.” It is representing innocence, sacrifice, purity, and divine love.

Who is the speaker in The Lamb?

The speaker is a child whose innocent perspective helps reveal the beauty of God’s creation. It also presents the interconnectedness of all living beings.

What is the setting of The Lamb?

The poem is set in an idyllic pastoral countryside filled with streams, meadows, sunshine, and valleys. It is symbolizing harmony and natural innocence.

What is the rhyme scheme of The Lamb?

The poem follows a simple rhyme scheme of aa bb cc dd ee in each stanza. It is creating a musical and hymn-like effect.

How does Blake present childhood in The Lamb?

Blake presents childhood as a state of purity, spiritual wisdom, innocence, and closeness to God.

Conclusion

The Lamb is one of William Blake’s most celebrated poems from Songs of Innocence. Through the image of the gentle lamb, Blake explores themes of God, creation, nature, childhood, and innocence. The poem’s simple language, musical rhythm, and rich Christian symbolism make it an enduring work of English literature. Ultimately, The Lamb celebrates the beauty of God’s creation. It encourages readers to appreciate the purity, joy, and spiritual harmony present in the natural world.