A Cradle Song

William Blake

Teacher card

Published: 1794, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Length: 32 lines, 166 words, 1 word in 33 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: birthday, christmas
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

Sweet dreams, form a shadeO’er my lovely infant’s head!Sweet dreams of pleasant streamsBy happy, silent, moony beams!

Sweet Sleep, with soft downWeave thy brows an infant crown!Sweet Sleep, angel mild,Hover o’er my happy child!

Sweet smiles, in the nightHover over my delight!Sweet smiles, mother’s smiles,All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,Chase not slumber from thy eyes!Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep, sleep, happy child!All creation slept and smiled.Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,While o’er thee thy mother weep.

Sweet babe, in thy faceHoly image I can trace;Sweet babe, once like theeThy Maker lay, and wept for me:

Wept for me, for thee, for all,When He was an infant small.Thou His image ever see,Heavenly face that smiles on thee!

Smiles on thee, on me, on all,Who became an infant small;Infant smiles are His own smiles;Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.

William Blake (died 1827), Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), lines 383–421 of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for names in posy cardsin posy · 32 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
posy.popplepoetry.com/sources#bl-cradle

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/blake-cradle-song · popplepoetry.com