Infant Joy

William Blake

Teacher card

Published: 1794, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Length: 12 lines, 50 words, no long words
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: birthday
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

‘I have no name;I am but two days old.’What shall I call thee?‘I happy am,Joy is my name.’Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!Sweet joy, but two days old.Sweet joy I call thee:Thou dost smile,I sing the while;Sweet joy befall thee!

William Blake (died 1827), Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), lines 603–615 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 · 12 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-infant

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-infant-joy · popplepoetry.com