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Lyric Poem · Love

A Little Girl Lost

by William Blake

1Children of the future age,

2Reading this indignant page,

3Know that in a former time

4Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.

5In the age of gold,

6Free from winter's cold,

7Youth and maiden bright,

8To the holy light,

9Naked in the sunny beams delight.

10Once a youthful pair,

11Filled with softest care,

12Met in garden bright

13Where the holy light

14Had just removed the curtains of the night.

15Then, in rising day,

16On the grass they play;

17Parents were afar,

18Strangers came not near,

19And the maiden soon forgot her fear.

20Tired with kisses sweet,

21They agree to meet

22When the silent sleep

23Waves o'er heaven's deep,

24And the weary tired wanderers weep.

25To her father white

26Came the maiden bright;

27But his loving look,

28Like the holy book

29All her tender limbs with terror shook.

30"Ona, pale and weak,

31To thy father speak!

32Oh the trembling fear!

33Oh the dismal care

34That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!"

Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.

Quick facts

Poem
A Little Girl Lost
Poet
William Blake
Length
34 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Love, Nature, Peace

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
34 lines · 7 stanzas of 4–5 lines
Line length
Mostly 5-syllable lines.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
William Blake1757–1827
Source record
PoetryDBA Little Girl Lost by william-blake, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 48428657845f3f10
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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