1Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
5'Pipe a song about a Lamb!'
So I piped with merry chear.
'Piper, pipe that song again;'
So I piped: he wept to hear.
9' Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy chear:'
So I sang the same again.
While he wept with joy to hear.
13'Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.'
So he vanish'd from my sight,
And I pluck'd a hollow reed,
In the first and subsequent issues of the Songs of Innocence printed on the recto of leaf, verso blank. This poem was first printed in ordinary type in Cunningham's Lives of British Painters, ii. 150 (1830).
11 sang] sung Cunn., Wilk., Shep., WBY.
Thus translated, with the omission of the second and third stanzas, by Dr. N. H. Julius, in the Vaterldndisches Museum, ]ahrg. 1811, Bd. II, Hefti: —
'Pfeifend ging ich durch das Thal,
Pfeifend Lieder ohne Zahl;
Sah ein Kind von Luft getragen,
Hort' es lachelnd zu mir sagen:
"Pfeifer, setz dich hin und schreib,
Dass dein Lied im Sinn verbleib'."
So erklang's vor meinem Ohr,
Und ich schnitt ein hohles Rohr,
Schnitzte eine Feder dran,
Macht' aus Wasser Tinte dann,
Schrieb die Lieder hin zur Stund,
Dass sie sing' der Kinder Mund.'
