AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
Question about this poem?
Have a question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Ask us
Ask us
Ask a question
Ask a question
Ask a question
The Full Text of “Infant Joy”
1I have no name
2I am but two days old.—
3What shall I call thee?
4I happy am
5Joy is my name,—
6Sweet joy befall thee!
7Pretty joy!
8Sweet joy but two days old,
9Sweet joy I call thee;
10Thou dost smile.
11I sing the while
12Sweet joy befall thee.
-
“Infant Joy” Introduction
-
"Infant Joy" appears in Songs of Innocence, the first half of English poet William Blake's groundbreaking collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). Giving voice to a two-day-old baby who names themselves "Joy," the poem celebrates the miracle of new life. The other speaker, possibly the infant's parent, shares in the baby's boundless happiness and hopes that "Sweet joy" may continue to bless the child's life. "Infant Joy" has a mirror poem in Songs of Experience, "Infant Sorrow," in which a rather less cheerful infant speaker anticipates a life of misery and restriction.
-
-
“Infant Joy” Summary
-
"I don't have a name yet—I'm only two days old," says the first speaker, a baby. A second, grown-up speaker replies: "What should I name you?" "I am happy," the baby says. "I should be called Joy." "Bless you," says the grown-up: "May joy fill your life!"
The grown-up continues, "Oh, beautiful joy! Darling joy, only two days old; you are sweet joy, and that's what I'll call you. While you smile, I'll keep on singing the same words: may joy fill your life!"
-
-
“Infant Joy” Themes
-
The Joy and Innocence of New Life
"Infant Joy" is a short dialogue between a baby (just "two days old") and an adult (who could be the baby’s parent or a kind of poet-narrator, as appears elsewhere in Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience). When the grown-up asks what they should call the baby, the baby simply responds: “Joy is my name.” Babyhood, this poem suggests, is a miraculous time of pure joy—a feeling that the adult speaker hopes the baby can hold onto as they grow.
The poem's newborn baby is instinctively happy to simply exist, so carefree and innocent that it's basically the living embodiment of delight: choosing to name itself "Joy," this baby declares that joy is its very essence. When babies are born, the poem suggests, the big bad adult world is nowhere to be seen. The new arrival can just bask in the bliss of being alive.
The grown speaker agrees that "Joy" is the only fitting name for this little one: just looking at the baby makes them “sing” with joy themselves. The baby’s delight seems to remind them that life is miraculous and overwhelmingly beautiful. Overcome with feeling, the adult says to the baby, “Sweet joy befall thee," wishing them a whole life full of this happiness.
“Infant Joy” thus presents an idyllic picture of new life, in which babies are born joyful and spread joy all around them. Life, in this poem, begins in a state of bliss.
Of course, this is just day two of the baby's existence—and this is a poem from the Innocence section of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Its companion poem in the Experience section presents a much bleaker picture of infancy. For now, though, there’s no hint of the harsh reality check that might await this child. For a moment, both the baby and the adult caring for it just get to experience the wonder of new life.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Infant Joy”
-
Lines 1-3
I have no name
I am but two days old.—
What shall I call thee?"Infant Joy" is an uplifting dialogue between a newborn speaker and an adult figure—perhaps the baby's parent, perhaps the poet-narrator voice that appears throughout Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The "infant" of the title, unexpectedly enough, gets the first words, telling the grown-up its life story to date: it has "no name" yet, and it's only "two days old."
This baby speaks in simple, monosyllabic words, and often in dimeter (that is, lines of two stresses apiece) or trimeter (lines of three stresses), like so:
I have no name
I am but two days old.—These short, simple lines feel fitting for a speaker who's only lived for two days so far!
Both of the baby's first two lines start with the word "I." This anaphora reminds readers that this new little self is just getting to grips with having a separate life and identity: with "no name" and only "two days" on earth, it still seems to be enjoying the novelty of being an "I" at all.
The poem, too, honors this baby's independence. Blake's poetry deeply values childhood, often depicting it as a pure, free, instinctive, and ecstatic state. It's telling, then, that the first words in this poem belong to the infant, rather than the adult—and that the adult replies to the baby's declaration that it has "no name" with a respectful question: "What shall I call thee?"
Newborn babies, of course, are usually named by their parents, so there's a role reversal here. The adult speaker gives this decision back to the child, giving the infant's perspective priority. Children, these first lines suggest, deserve respect as independent people from the moment they're born.
-
Lines 4-6
I happy am
Joy is my name,—
Sweet joy befall thee!
Unlock all 331 words of this analysis of Lines 4-6 of “Infant Joy,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Lines 7-9
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy but two days old,
Sweet joy I call thee; -
Lines 10-12
Thou dost smile.
I sing the while
Sweet joy befall thee.
-
-
“Infant Joy” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Repetition
Unlock all 261 words of this analysis of Repetition in “Infant Joy,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
End-Stopped Line
-
Pun
-
-
“Infant Joy” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Thee, Thou
- Befall thee
- Dost
Thee, Thou-
Old-fashioned, affectionate ways of saying "you"—sort of like "tu" in contemporary French and Spanish:
- "Thee" is the object form of the word, the version you use when something is happening to the person (as in "What shall I call thee?")
- "Thou" is the subject form, the word you use when the person is doing something (as in "Thou dost smile")
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Infant Joy”
-
Form
"Infant Joy" is built from two six-line stanzas (sestets) with a number of repeated elements: the endings of lines 8, 9, and 12 in the second stanza echo lines 2, 3, and 6 in the first. This pure, simple form suits the pure, simple joy of the infant speaker.
The symmetry between the two stanzas also mirrors the loving, mutual relationship between the newborn and the adult speaker. Everything here, the poem's shape suggests, is as it should be, harmonious and sacred.
-
Meter
"Infant Joy" uses an unpredictable flavor of accentual meter: it doesn't stick to any one type of metrical foot. However, there's still a pulsing rhythm here. Most of the lines are written in dimeter, with two strong stresses apiece—as in "I have no name," "Thou dost smile," or "Joy is my name." Those two-beat lines suit the poem's infant speaker, who—after all—is only "two days old."
Some lines, though, can be read as either dimeter or trimeter (a line with three stresses). For instance, one could scan the words "Sweet joy befall thee" with two stresses—"Sweet joy befall thee!"—or with three—"Sweet joy befall thee!" The possibility of that extra stress makes the adoring adult's voice sound even more fervent.
-
Rhyme Scheme
The rhyme scheme in "Infant Joy" runs like this:
ABCAAC DBCEEC
This pattern might look complex written out like that, but it doesn't sound very complex. That's because many of the lines in this intensely repetitive poem use identical rhyme (that is, they rhyme on exactly the same word). For example, every C rhyme in this poem lands on the word "thee," with a little musical variation added by the changing words that come before it: "call" or "befall."
These powerful repetitions feel both harmonious and overwhelming, suggesting that the joy of this newborn life is so great that all the speakers can do is marvel at it, "sing[ing]" joy's praises over and over again.
-
-
“Infant Joy” Speaker
-
"Infant Joy" has two speakers: the "infant" in the title (who speaks lines 1-2 and 4-5) and an adult.
Blake's illumination of this poem portrays a female figure holding the baby, watched over by an angel; perhaps the adult speaker is the mother, perhaps the angel, and perhaps the poet-narrator who pops up elsewhere in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (in the "Introduction," for instance). All that really matters is that, whoever the speaker is, they share in the infant speaker's pure, innocent, and uncomplicated joy at the miracle of being alive, singing with joy as the baby smiles.
Of course, babies can't talk (especially not "infants"—at its roots, the word means "unable to speak!"). Blake gives a voice to the voiceless here, as he often did. The child is a mere two days old and doesn't even have a name; perhaps part of its joy comes from the fact that it hasn't encountered the world's oppressions and dangers just yet.
-
-
“Infant Joy” Setting
-
The poem doesn't offer any details about time or place, other than the fact that the infant speaker is only "two days old." The lack of a clear setting feels intimate. It's as if the poem were taking place in a room in which only the baby and the adult speaker are present; they're too wrapped up in their shared "joy" to look beyond each other's faces.
The lack of a location makes the poem feel more universal and idyllic, as if this is how newborn babies and their caretakers feel (or could feel) in every time and place. There is no suggestion of the dirt, danger, and disease of Blake's 18th-century London lurking outside!
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Infant Joy”
Literary Context
William Blake (1757-1827) is a poet unlike any other. Often considered one of the first English Romantics, he also stands apart from any movement as a unique philosopher, prophet, and artist.
Blake published "Infant Joy" in the Innocence section of his best-known work, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). This two-part book examines what Blake called "the two contrary states of the human soul," and many of the poems in Songs of Innocence (which was first published separately in 1789) have a counterpart in Songs of Experience—a twin poem that reads the same subjects from a new perspective. This poem's counterpart is "Infant Sorrow," in which another newborn speaker feels oppressed and miserable from the moment they enter the world.
Blake didn't just write poetry: he also designed, engraved, printed, painted, and published illuminated manuscripts using a technique he called the "infernal method." Blake painted his poems and pictures on copper plates with a resilient ink, then burned away the excess copper in a bath of acid—the opposite of the process most engravers used. But then, Blake often did the opposite of what other people did, believing that it was his role to "reveal the infinite that was hid" by custom and falsehood.
Even among the often countercultural Romantics, then, Blake was an outlier. Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself—no stranger to a wild vision—once remarked that he was "in the very mire of common-place common-sense compared with Mr. Blake."
While Blake was never widely known during his lifetime, he has become one of the most famous and beloved of poets since his death, and writers from Allen Ginsberg to Olga Tokarczuk to Philip Pullman claim him as a major influence.
Historical Context
William Blake spent much of his life railing against the cruelties of 18th- and 19th-century British society—and he had plenty to rail against. The England of Blake's time was just getting caught up in the Industrial Revolution, a period during which the economy shifted from farming to manufacturing. English class divisions, always intense, began to seem even more pronounced as impoverished workers lived cheek-by-jowl with the fashionable and wealthy in newly crowded towns.
It was particularly hard to be a child during this period. Infant mortality rates were high; two of Blake's six siblings died at birth. And even young children were often forced to work in factories, dig in mines, and sweep chimneys (an absurdly dangerous job, contrary to the cheery Mary Poppins image many are familiar with: chimney-sweeps as young as three or four years old regularly suffocated in narrow flues).
Blake believed that childhood was a wise, precious, and sacred time, and keenly felt the cruelties and injustices that his society inflicted on the young. This poem's pure "joy" is a vision of what Blake felt should be; poems like "Infant Sorrow," "Holy Thursday," and "The Chimney Sweeper" indictments of what was.
-
More “Infant Joy” Resources
-
External Resources
-
Blake's Biography — Learn more about Blake's life and work at the website of the British Library.
-
Songs of Innocence and of Experience — Visit the Blake Archive to see this poem as Blake originally published it in a beautiful illuminated manuscript.
-
The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of both "Infant Sorrow" and "Infant Joy."
-
Blake's Visions — Watch an excerpt from a documentary in which writer Iain Sinclair discusses Blake's religious visions.
-
A Blake Documentary — Listen to Blake scholars discussing the poet's life and work.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by William Blake
-
