"The Lamb" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. "The Lamb" is the counterpart poem to Blake's poem: "The Tyger" in Songs of Experience. Blake wrote Songs of Innocence as a contrary to the Songs of Experience – a central tenet in his philosophy and a central theme in his work. Like many of Blake's works, the poem is about Christianity. The lamb is a frequently used name of Jesus Christ, who is also called "The Lamb of God" in the Gospel of John 1:29 and 36, as well as throughout John's Book of Revelation (or Revelations) at the end of the New Testament. Poem Structure At first glance, this poem appears to consist of rhyming couplets, and the first and last couplet in the first stanza could be said to exhibit identical rhyme; however, the rhyme is an exact repeat of the three last words, or phrase, "who made thee," and the last couplet is a repetition of the first verbatim. The effect is that of a refrain in a song, such as a lullaby in this "Song of Innocence." The speaker is even a child. It is interesting to note that the final word of the third and fourth lines (the first couplet in the body of the text), "feed mead," rhyme identically with the final word of the first two lines, "thee," creating a smooth transition. The body of the first stanza follows the rhyming scheme AABBCC: "feed mead delight bright voice rejoice;" the body of the second, follows the rhyming scheme ABCCBA: "name lamb mild child lamb name"—a pattern found in the Bible and a kernel of a larger Hebraic technique or device. An exact repeat of the entire line is employed in the second stanza's first and last couplets: the first two lines, and then the last two different lines, with the ABCCBA scheme in the body. The whole is indeed effective, one might even say "innocent" with perfect truth. In the first stanza, the speaker, a child, asks the lamb who its creator is, and if it knows who; the child knows and tells the lamb the answer in the second stanza. Musical settings Like the other Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, The Lamb may have been intended to be sung, but no records survive of Blake's own musical settings. It was set to music by