Song by a Shepherd. Appendix to Poetical Sketches. William Blake. 1908. The Poetical Works

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William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908.

Appendix to Poetical Sketches

Song by a Shepherd


WELCOME, 1 stranger, to this place.
Where joy doth sit on every bough,
Paleness flies from every face;
We reap not what we do not sow.

Innocence doth like a rose	5
Bloom on every maiden’s cheek;
Honour twines around her brows,
The jewel health adorns her neck.

Note 1. These songs, which are written, though not in Blake’s autograph, upon the fly-leaves of a presentation copy of the Poetical Sketches, dated May 15, 1784, were first printed by R. H. Shepherd in Pickering’s reprint of 1868. Besides these, with the title ‘Song 2^d by a Young Shepherd’, is an earlier version of the ‘Laughing Song’ in the Songs of Innocence. [back]

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