Analysis of Nurse's Song (Innocence)

William Blake 1757 (Soho) – 1827 (London)



When voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still

Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep

Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills echoed


Scheme XAXA XBCB CDXD CXXX
Poetic Form Quatrain  (75%)
Metre 11011011101 01011101 111110111 010111 11111001111 0011101 1111101101 101001001 1111111111 0110111 0100101011 001111011 1111101101 011111 01011101 010110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 591
Words 124
Sentences 1
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 117
Words per stanza (avg) 31
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 14, 2023

37 sec read
243

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter and printmaker. more…

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