Spring

William Blake

Teacher card

Published: 1794, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Length: 27 lines, 83 words, 1 word in 10 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 7–8. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: spring, sun
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

Sound the flute!Now it’s mute!Birds delight,Day and night,Nightingale,In the dale,Lark in sky,—Merrily,Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little boy,Full of joy;Little girl,Sweet and small;Cock does crow,So do you;Merry voice,Infant noise;Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb,Here I am;Come and lickMy white neck;Let me pullYour soft wool;Let me kissYour soft face;Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

William Blake (died 1827), Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), lines 541–569 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 the sky in the weather poemsin weatherline · 27 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
weatherline.popplepoetry.com/sources#bl-spring

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-spring · popplepoetry.com