WILLIAM BLAKE
500 Reeds of Innocence
)IPING down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
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��'Pipe a song about a Lamb So I piped with merry cheer.
'Piper, pipe that song again ;' So I piped, he wept to hear.
'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!' So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
'Piper, sit thce down and write In a book that all may read.'
So he vanish'd from my sight; And I pluck'd a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
��507 The Little Black Boy
MY mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O, my soul is white' White as an angel is the English child, But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
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