Lyric Poem · Nature

Spring

by William Blake

Reading room

1 Sound the flute!

2 Now it's mute!

3 Bird's delight,

4 Day and night,

5 Nightingale,

6 In the dale,

7 Lark in sky, —

8 Merrily,

9Merrily merrily, to welcome in the year.

10 Little boy,

11 Full of joy;

12 Little girl,

13 Sweet and small;

14 Cock does crow,

15 So do you;

16 Merry voice,

17 Infant noise;

18Merrily, merrily, to welcome in the year.

19 Little lamb,

20 Here I am;

21 Come and lick

22 My white neck;

23 Let me pull

24 Your soft wool;

25 Let me kiss

26 Your soft face;

27Merrily, merrily, to welcome in the year.

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

Tip: click any line number to copy a ready-made citation for that line.

“Spring” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/spring-blake

Quick facts

Poem: Spring
Poet: William Blake
Length: 27 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature, Spring, Love

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: 27 lines · 3 stanzas of 9 lines
Line length: Mostly 3-syllable lines.
Refrain: “Merrily, merrily, to welcome in the year.”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.

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.

Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake

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: PoetryDBSpring 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 e18b57fba7c6cda1…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

Jurisdiction-specific, never a worldwide claimRights policy Report a text or rights issue

Lyric Poem Nature Spring Love

Keep reading

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron · 1814

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright

18 lines · lyric

Love's Philosophy

Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1819

The fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for ever

16 lines · lyric

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

12 lines · lyric

More nature poems →