Laughing Song

William Blake

Teacher card

Published: 1794, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Length: 12 lines, 101 words, 1 word in 34 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: birthday, thanks
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;When the air does laugh with our merry wit,And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;When Mary and Susan and EmilyWith their sweet round mouths sing ‘Ha ha he!’

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:Come live, and be merry, and join with me,To sing the sweet chorus of ‘Ha ha he!’

William Blake (died 1827), Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), lines 362–375 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-laughing

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-laughing-song · popplepoetry.com