The Full Text of “Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)”
1When the voices of children are heard on the green
2And laughing is heard on the hill,
3My heart is at rest within my breast
4And everything else is still
5"Then come home my children the sun is gone down
6And the dews of night arise
7Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
8Till the morning appears in the skies."
9"No, no, let us play, for it is yet day
10And we cannot go to sleep;
11Besides, in the sky the little birds fly
12And the hills are all covered with sheep."
13"Well, well, go and play till the light fades away
14And then go home to bed."
15The little ones leaped & shouted and laugh'd
16And all the hills echoed.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Introduction
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"Nurse's Song" appears in visionary poet William Blake's 1789 collection Songs of Innocence. The poem depicts a joyful scene, in which a nurse (something like a modern-day nanny) watches the children in her care as they play outside. Through the nurse's gentleness and warmth, the poem depicts a world that cherishes and prioritizes the innocence, curiosity, and freedom of childhood. "Nurse's Song" is one of seven poem titles to appear in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (which were published together in 1794). Its mirror poem in Songs of Experience is far bleaker, its speaker describing children's play as a "waste[]" of time.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Summary
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When I hear children playing on the grassy field and their laughter echoing out from the hill, my heart feels calm in my chest and the world is at peace.
I call out to my children, "Let's go home, the sun has gone down and the dampness of night has begun to set in. Come on, stop playing, let's go; we can come back in the morning."
The children say in response, "Please, let us keep playing; it's still light out and we can't go to bed yet. And look, small birds are flying through the sky, and there are sheep all over the hills."
So I say, "Ok, ok, go off and play until there's no more light in the sky, and then it's time to return home and go to bed."
The children jump and shout and laugh, their voices echoing through the hills.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Themes
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The Innocence and Joy of Childhood
"Nurse's Song," from William Blake's Songs of Innocence, presents an idealized vision of childhood. Under the care of their nurse (something like a modern-day nanny), the children in the poem are allowed to stay out late, play freely, and engage in their natural curiosity about the world. Their nurse looks on from a distance, happily supervising their play without restricting it. In this way, the poem celebrates the contagious wonder and delight of childhood, qualities the poem implies are worth encouraging and protecting.
The children's laughter echoes through hills, spreading the sound of unabashed happiness throughout their surroundings. Their joy gives the nurse a sense of inner peace, her own (quieter) contentment. When she hears the children laughing, her "heart is at rest within my breast / And everything else is still." In other words, she feels as though everything is as it should be.
The poem implies that this idyllic vision of childhood depends upon the nurse's trust, love, and understanding. This isn't a world totally lacking in authority; the children are free to play as they wish, but the nurse keeps her tender, attentive gaze on them from afar. She tries to call the children in before the "dews of night arise," promising they can come back the next day. She looks out for them but doesn't frighten them into obedience.
The children, of course, desperately want to keep playing and exploring the hills, where they're captivated by the flight of the birds and the vast numbers of sheep. The nurse lets them stay out, entrusting them to "go home to bed" once the light is gone. She values their spirited attitude towards the world, implicitly prioritizing it over getting them to bed at certain time: joy takes precedence over arbitrary rules.
The hills thus ring out even more loudly with the shouts and laughs of the children, who are allowed to discover the world on their own terms. These children flourish, the poem implies, because they live in a safe world that understands, values, and prioritizes the precious innocence of childhood.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)”
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Lines 1-4
When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is stillThe Songs of Innocence version of "Nurse's Song" presents a utopian vision of what childhood should be like. The poem's speaker is the nurse of the title (a woman in charge of a group of children). Picture the scene: it's getting late, but the nurse's children are having a wonderful time playing in the great outdoors. The nurse, in turn, is happy that they're happy.
The poem's first two lines focus on the sound of the children's shouts and laughter as they echo around the green (that is, the grassy hill they're playing on). The fact that the nurse describes hearing the children rather than seeing them suggests that the kids have wandered off a bit. This, in turn, suggests that the nurse is monitoring the children, but she's not domineering. Under her care, they're free to frolic and enjoy themselves, so long as they're within earshot.
There's no sense of any danger or risk. As such, the nurse says that her heart is "at rest"—that is, calm and serene. She knows the children are happy, safe, and doing what they do best (playing!). The internal rhyme between "rest" and "breast" lends the line a satisfying sound that evokes the nurse's contentment; everything is in its right place.
The rest of the poem will follow the form introduced here: each stanza is a quatrain with an ABCB rhyme scheme. In other words, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, as with "hill" and "still" here.
The poem's meter, meanwhile, consists mainly of anapests (trisyllabic feet with a stress pattern of da-da-DUM). More specifically, it alternates between lines of anapestic tetrameter (lines of four anapests) and anapestic trimeter (three anapests):
When the voi- | ces of child- | ren are heard | on the green
And laugh- | ing is heard | on the hill,This is a riff on something called ballad meter. There are occasional variations (as with the iamb, da-DUM, of "And laugh-"), but otherwise the poem's form is pretty predictable. These anapests and steady rhymes lend the poem a carefree, skipping sound that evokes the children's joy.
Finally, notice how both lines 2 and 4 start with "and." This anaphora will appear throughout the poem (in fact, almost every second and fourth line of each stanza starts with "and"). This subtly echoes the polysyndeton found in many translations of the Bible, making this scene sound like a version of Paradise/Eden/heaven. Consider, too, the grammatical function of "and" more generally: it connects and extends phrases/sentences. The repeated use of "and," then, also subtly mirrors the children's desire to extend their playtime outside (and, perhaps, to connect with the environment within which they play).
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Lines 5-8
"Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies."
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Lines 9-12
"No, no, let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep." -
Lines 13-16
"Well, well, go and play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed."
The little ones leaped & shouted and laugh'd
And all the hills echoed.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Symbols
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The Birds and Sheep
The children argue that they should be allowed to keep playing not just because there's still daylight, but also because there are still birds flying in the sky and sheep on the hill. To the children, the fact that the "little birds" and sheep get to stay out means that they should get to stay out, too.
These creatures are also symbolic. Birds, with their ability to soar through the sky, typically represent freedom. The sheep, meanwhile, represent innocence (think of Blake's poem "The Lamb," or how the Bible sometimes refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God).
The presence of these animals, in turn, conveys that the children's world is marked by freedom and innocence. There are no threats here, and the children are in harmony with their natural surroundings.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
"Nurse's Song" is filled with sonic devices that lend its language with playful music. One of these devices is alliteration, which appears in every stanza and helps convey the children's excitement as they play on the green.
Listen to the /h/ sounds of line 2, for example:
And laughing is heard on the hill,
There's also "heard" in line 1 (also an example of diacope, given that the same word appears in line 2) and "heart" in line 3. The /h/ sound requires an exhalation of air, and this alliteration thus lends the stanza a certain breathlessness. This makes sense, giving the children are running around outside.
The next stanza features alliteration via the shared /d/ sounds of "down" and "dews," the heaviness of which perhaps subtly evokes the coming of the night.
The most striking alliteration, however, is the triple-whammy of /l/ sounds in line 15, which captures the children's reaction when they find out they're allowed to play a little longer:
The little ones leaped & shouted and laugh'd
These /l/ sounds are playful and sprightly, as though the poem, like the children, suddenly has an extra spring in its step. Notice, too, how this alliteration chimes pleasantly with the consonance of "all the hills," ending the poem on a smooth, musical note.
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Assonance
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Repetition
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” 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.
- Green
- Dews
- Arise
Green-
A grassy field.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)”
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Form
"Nurse's Song" consists of four stanzas with four lines apiece. These quatrains more specifically ballad stanzas:
- They follow an ABCB rhyme scheme, meaning lines 2 and 4 in each stanza rhyme with each other.
- They alternate between lines of tetrameter (four poetic feet) and trimeter (three feet); more on this in the Meter section of this guide.
This is a very musical, familiar poetic form that echoes the rhythms of nursery rhymes and hymns. The poem's predictable rhythms work well to evoke the simplicity and happiness of the scene at hand.
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Meter
"Nurse's Song" uses a loose meter built from anapests and iambs. An anapest consists of three syllables arranged in an unstressed-unstressed-stressed pattern (da-da-DUM), while an iamb has two syllables in unstressed-stressed pattern (da-DUM). The poem also alternates lines of tetrameter (four feet) with lines of trimeter (three feet), a variation on typical ballad meter.
Here's the first stanza to illustrate all this in action:
When the voi- | ces of child- | ren are heard | on the green
And laugh- | ing is heard | on the hill,
My heart | is at rest | within | my breast
And ev- | erything else | is stillLine 1 consists of four iambs; line 2 begins with an iamb followed by two iambs; line three goes iamb, anapest, iamb, iamb; and line 4 goes iamb, anapest, iamb.
This rising meter fills the poem with a joyful, bouncy rhythm.
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Rhyme Scheme
In "Nurse's Song," the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. This creates a rhyme scheme of ABCB DEFE and so on.
This simple pattern is the typical rhyme scheme for ballad stanzas, and Blake uses it for many poems in Songs of Innocence and Experience. Here, the rhymes fill the poem with satisfying, pleasant music. The steady rhymes create a sense of harmony, reflecting the poem's idyllic world in which everything is in its rightful place.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Speaker
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The poem's main speaker is the nurse of the title (it's her "song," after all!). The nurse isn't a medical professional in the modern sense, but something more like a nanny who looks after children. She comes across as kind, light-hearted, and sympathetic to the needs of her wards. The sound of their laughter warms her heart, and when they want to play a little bit longer in the dusk, she lets them.
Through the nurse, the poem depicts a society that cares for and prioritizes the needs and desires of the young. She facilitates their natural curiosity and instinctive energy—and their happiness makes her happy, too (Check out the Experience version of "Nurse's Song" for a different perspective.)
The poem also gives the children a voice as they respond to the nurse's instructions to come home. This dialogue is gentle and respectful, reflecting their affectionate relationship. The last two lines, though, are a little more mysterious. They could be spoken by the nurse, but they might also be the omniscient narrator of Songs of Innocence and Experience swooping in as the poem zooms out.
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“Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Setting
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The poem takes place outside as children play on "the green" (a grassy field) and a "hill." Both of these feature throughout Songs of Innocence as places of peace and joy (e.g., "The Echoing Green" or "The Laughing Song"). The children love playing there: they feel free, and enjoy the company of birds and sheep (lines 11 and 12).
Time plays an important role in the poem, too. It's dusk: the sun has set for the day, though some light remains in the sky, and the night is waiting in the wings. The children probably should go home to bed, but they beg not to—and get permission to stay out longer from their nurse.
Overall, then, the poem offers up a kind of idyllic setting in which children can just be children. It's hard to imagine anything bad happening in this world.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)”
Literary Context
William Blake (1757-1827) is a poet unlike any other. Often considered one of the first of the English Romantics, he also stands apart from the movement as a unique philosopher and artist.
There are two "Nurse's Songs." Blake self-published this one as part of the Innocence section of his best-known work, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, in 1794 (though Blake had also released the Innocence poems on their own in 1789). 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 have a counterpart in Songs of Experience—a twin poem that reads the same subjects from a new perspective.
While this nurse clearly cares for her children and finds joy in their play, the nurse in the Experience version of the poem seems to resent her charges. While the children's voices fill this poem with laughter, they don't get the chance to speak in the Experience poem. And while this poem presents an idyllic vision of childhood, the Experience suggests that childhood innocence is fleeting, deceptive, and doomed.
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 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. The countryside began to empty out, and the cities began to swell. And 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.
Workers during the early Industrial Revolution got a pretty raw deal. Even young children—unlike those in this poem—were forced to work in factories, dig in mines, and sweep chimneys.
This increasingly mechanized and factory-driven society made thinkers like Blake worry that people were losing touch with their place in the natural order—and thus with their humanity. Blake was particularly appalled by the child labor that marked this era, seeing it as a consequence of the way that mechanization and conformism cut people off from their naturally independent imaginations.
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More “Nurse's Song (Songs of Innocence)” Resources
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External Resources
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Blake's Visions — Watch an excerpt from a documentary in which writer Iain Sinclair discusses Blake's religious visions.
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A Blake Documentary — Listen to Blake scholars discussing the poet's life and work.
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Blake's Biography — Learn more about Blake's life and work at the website of the British Library.
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Songs of Innocence and Experience — Check out the full book as Blake originally published it, including his beautiful artwork that accompanies the poems.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Blake
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