rather when weare sad. And by staining the water clear, Blake is creatinga paradox. Something cannot be stained clear. In a child'smind, opposites do not exist. These statements all makeperfect sense to him. A child does not have a rationalmind; a child has a literal mind.Repetition is yet another method used by Blake torecreate the state of innocence. Repetition is an importanttool used by children to learn. They repeat what they aretold, and adults repeat what the child says to assureclarity. In this poem, we find the words piper, pipe,piping and song repeated numerous times. We thereforeassociate the repetition with the symbol of the young child,thus reinforcing the image of innocence. It aides increating the state of innocence in this series of poems. Wealso find parallel structuring which is repeated throughoutthe poem.In the Songs of Experience, Blake has divided thedialectic which took place in the Introduction from Songs ofInnocence, between the child and the piper, into two parts. The first being Introduction and the second Earth's Answer. The first part is the voice of the Bard speaking to theEarth. Although, there appears to be an ambiguity in this. In the first stanza, we are presented to the Bard who hasheard "the Holy Word". The second stanza begins with aconjugated verb, but it's subject is left ambiguous. We donot know for certain whether it is the voice of the Bard orthe Holy Word which is "Calling the lapsed Soul". In anessay written by Robert F. Gleckner (1960), he states thathe interprets the ambiguity as evidence of two separatevoices within the poem. One is the voice of the Bard, thesecond the Holy Word of God. They both are saying the samething in the final two stanzas. They are both pleading withthe Earth to return to its splendor. The reply to thiscalling is found in Earth's Answer. In this poem, Earth isanswering to the voice (or voices) calling it, but it isfeeling restrained by jealousy, ...
