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Lyric Poem · Nature

The Echoing Green

by William Blake

1The sun does arise,

2And make happy the skies;

3The merry bells ring

4To welcome the Spring;

5The skylark and thrush,

6The birds of the bush,

7Sing louder around

8To the bells' cheerful sound;

9While our sports shall be seen

10On the echoing Green.

11Old John, with white hair,

12Does laugh away care,

13Sitting under the oak,

14Among the old folk.

15They laugh at our play,

16And soon they all say,

17"Such, such were the joys

18When we all — girls and boys —

19In our youth-time were seen

20On the echoing Green."

21Till the little ones, weary,

22No more can be merry:

23The sun does descend,

24And our sports have an end.

25Round the laps of their mothers

26Many sisters and brothers,

27Like birds in their nest,

28Are ready for rest,

29And sport no more seen

30On the darkening green.

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Quick facts

Poem
The Echoing Green
Poet
William Blake
Length
30 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Spring, Childhood

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
30 lines · 3 stanzas of 10 lines
Line length
Lines run 5-7 syllables (median 5). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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
PoetryDBThe Echoing Green 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 3122dceb05b49970
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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