The Little Girl Lost is a 1794 poem published by William Blake in his collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience . According to scholar, Grevel Lindop, this poem represents Blake's pattern of the transition between "the spontaneous, imaginative Innocence of childhood" to the "complex and mature (but also more dangerous) adult state of Experience." [1]
According to Lindop, the poem starts out with a prophecy from Blake during the first two stanzas. This prophecy is telling readers that "our imperfect world will one day be redeemed and renewed by the God who created it." [1] This is not a warning of a "second-coming" or "judgement day," but just Blake believing that those on earth must seek out God. According to scholar Thomas Connolly the Earth will "awake to see her maker" and this will bring out an "Edenic regeneration." [2] Following the prophecy, the poem's narrative begins. Lyca, the "little girl" in the poem wanders out into the wilderness. Her parents are very distressed about their lost daughter. As pointed out in Lindop's summary, "the knowledge of her parents' grief disturbs her, but she has no anxiety on her own behalf and the very beasts her parents fear treat her gently and carry her to their caves as she sleeps." The poem ends following the animals taking Lyca off to the caves. [1]
The narrative in this poem continues in "The Little Girl Found."
"The Little Girl Lost" is a thirteen-stanza poem, has 52 lines, and follows an AABB rhyme scheme.
After an initial prophesy, Lyca, a wandering child, is introduced:
In the southern clime,
Where the summers prime,
Never fades away:
Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.
She had wanderd long.
Hearing wild birds song.
Sweet sleep come to me
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother weep.—
Where can Lyca sleep. [3]— Stanzas 3-5
Eventually, she sleeps, and is discovered by wild beasts:
Sleeping Lyca lay;
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
View'd the maid asleep
...
While the lioness,
Loos'd her slender dress,
And naked they convey'd
To caves the sleeping maid. [4]— Stanzas 9 and 13
The plate for "The Little Girl Lost" features a couple embracing in a kiss with the woman's arm reaching upward. There is also a presence of nature with birds flying and branches hanging above the couple. A vine with a snake breaks up the first two stanzas from the rest of the poem. According to the scholars Rodney Baine and Mary Baine, the embracing lovers featured on the poem's plate helps to "suggest that Lyca journeys into the sexuality of adulthood, of experience. [5]
Throughout Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and as obviously stated in the title, there is a constant theme of moving from the stage of innocence to the stage of experience in his poems. According to Connolly, this transition is a sexual one. "The girl, Lyca, without guide or protector, successfully undergoes the experience of sexual maturation, despite her parents' fears; and then serves as a model to rid them of their own sexual guilt, and to introduce them to a state of innocence that they had never before experienced." [2] An important part to this interpretation is the question of how old Lyca really is. Connolly points out lines 13–14 in reference to Lyca's age, "Seven summers old/ Lovely Lyca told." Connolly brings to our attention that while it could simply mean that Lyca is seven, it could also mean seven summers have passed since she hit puberty. [2] If that was the case then Lyca would be at the same age as the woman depicted in the plate.
"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period. The poem is one of the most anthologised in the English literary canon, and has been the subject of both literary criticism and many adaptations, including various musical versions. The poem explores and questions Christian religious paradigms prevalent in late 18th century and early 19th century England, discussing God's intention and motivation for creating both the tiger and the Lamb.
"The Chimney Sweeper" is the title of a poem by William Blake, published in two parts in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794. The poem "The Chimney Sweeper" is set against the dark background of child labour that was prominent in England in the late 18th and 19th centuries. At the age of four and five, boys were sold to clean chimneys, due to their small size. These children were oppressed and had a diminutive existence that was socially accepted at the time. Children in this field of work were often unfed and poorly clothed. In most cases, these children died from either falling through the chimneys or from lung damage and other horrible diseases from breathing in the soot. In the earlier poem, a young chimney sweeper recounts a dream by one of his fellows, in which an angel rescues the boys from coffins and takes them to a sunny meadow; in the later poem, an apparently adult speaker encounters a child chimney sweeper abandoned in the snow while his parents are at church or possibly even suffered death where church is referring to being with God.
"The Echoing Green" is a poem by William Blake published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. The poem talks about merry sounds and images which accompany the children playing outdoors. Then, an old man happily remembers when he enjoyed playing with his friends during his own childhood. The last stanza depicts the little ones being weary when the sun has descended and going to their mother to rest after playing many games.
"London" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Experience in 1794. It is one of the few poems in Songs of Experience that does not have a corresponding poem in Songs of Innocence. Blake lived in London so writes of it as a resident rather than a visitor. The poems reference the "Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". The "Songs of Innocence" section contains poems which reference love, childhood and nature. Critics have suggested that the poems illustrate the effects of modernity on people and nature, through the discussion of dangerous industrial conditions, child labour, prostitution and poverty.
Holy Thursday is a poem by William Blake, from his 1789 book of poems Songs of Innocence.
Earth's Answer is a poem by William Blake within his larger collection called Songs of Innocence and of Experience. It is the response to the previous poem in The Songs of Experience-- Introduction . In the Introduction, the bard asks the Earth to wake up and claim ownership. In this poem, the feminine Earth responds.
"The Clod and the Pebble" is a poem from William Blake's 1794 collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
"The Little Girl Found" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794. In the poem, the parents of a seven-year-old girl, called Lyca, are looking desperately for their young daughter who is lost in the desert. During days and nights they go on looking for the girl up to the moment they find a lion which tells them where the child lies.
The Little Vagabond is a 1794 poem by English poet William Blake in his collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience. His collection, Songs of Innocence, was originally published alone, in 1789. The scholar Robert Gleckner says that the poem is a form of transformation of the boy in the poem "The School Boy", from Songs of Innocence.
"Infant Joy" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was first published as part of his collection Songs of Innocence in 1789 and is the counterpart to "Infant Sorrow", which was published at a later date in Songs of Experience in 1794.
"The Shepherd" is a poem from William Blake's Songs of Innocence (1789). This collection of songs was published individually four times before it was combined with the Songs of Experience for 12 editions which created the joint collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). Blake produced all of the illuminated printings himself beginning in 1789. Each publication of the songs has the plates in a different order, and sixteen other plates were published posthumously.
"The Fly" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794.
The Voice of the Ancient Bard is a poem written by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Innocence in 1789, but later moved to Songs of Experience, the second part of the larger collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience, 1794.
"Night" is a poem in the illuminated 1789 collection Songs of Innocence by William Blake, later incorporated into the larger compilation Songs of Innocence and of Experience. "Night" speaks about the coming of evil when darkness arrives, as angels protect and keep the sheep from the impending dangers.
Spring is a lyric poem written and illustrated by William Blake. It was first published in Songs of Innocence (1789) and later in Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794).
"The Little Boy Found" is a poem by William Blake first published in the collection Songs of Innocence in 1789. Songs of Innocence was printed using illuminated printing, a style Blake created. By integrating the images with the poems the reader was better able to understand the meaning behind each of Blake's poems.
"The Little Boy Lost" is a simple lyric poem written by William Blake. This poem is part of a larger work titled Songs of Innocence which was published in the year 1789. "The Little Boy Lost" is a prelude to "The Little Boy Found".
"Laughing Song" is a poem published in 1789 by the English poet William Blake. This poem is one of nineteen in Blake's collection Songs of Innocence.
"A Little Boy Lost" is a poem of the Songs of Experience series created in 1794 after the Songs of Innocence (1789) by the poet William Blake. The poem centers on the theme of religious persecution and the corrupted dictates of dogmatic Church teachings. As part of Songs of Experience the poem is set in the wider context of exploring the suffering of innocent and oppressed individuals—in this case a young boy, and his parents—within a flawed society that is oppressed and disillusioned with life's experience.
"The School Boy" is a 1789 poem by William Blake and published as a part of his poetry collection entitled Songs of Experience. These poems were later added with Blake's Songs of Innocence to create the entire collection entitled "Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". This collection included poems such as "The Tyger", "The Little Boy Lost", "Infant Joy" and "The Shepherd". These poems are illustrated with colorful artwork created by Blake first in 1789. The first printing in 1789 consisted of sixteen copies. None of the copies of Songs of Innocence are exactly alike as some of them are incomplete or were colored in posthumously "in imitation of" other copies.
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