The Lamb / Blake

"The Lamb" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. Like many of Blake's works, the poem is about Christianity.

Background
Like the other Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Lamb was intended to be sung; William Blake's original melody is now lost. It was made into a song by Vaughan Williams. It was also set to music by Sir John Tavener, who explained, "The Lamb came to me fully grown and was written in an afternoon and dedicated to my nephew Simon for his 3rd birthday." American poet Allen Ginsberg set the poem to music, along with several other of Blake's poems.

The Lamb can be compared to a more grandiose Blake poem: The Tyger in Songs of Experience.

Critical analysis suggests that both poems, "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," question the Christian belief that God is good; if God is responsible for creating both the good things in life (the lamb) and the evil things (the tyger), how can God be good and moral (cf. theodicee)?

The lamb is a common metaphor for Jesus Christ, who is also called the "The Lamb of God" in John 1:29.

Poetic structure
This poem has a simple rhyme scheme : AA BB CC DD AA  AA EF GG FE AA

The layout is set up by two stanzas with the refrain: "Little Lamb who made thee?/Dost thou know who made thee?"

In the first stanza, the speaker wonders who the lamb's creator is; the answer lies at the end of the poem. Here we find a physical description of the lamb, seen as a pure and gentle creature. In the second stanza, the lamb is compared with the infant Jesus, as well as between the lamb and the speaker's soul. In the last two lines the speaker identifies the creator: God.