Essay on Blake's Nurse's Song in Songs of Innocence
             In Blake's Nurse's Song in Songs of Innocence, the idea of innocence is largely presented by showing the children's carefree enjoyment of present. At the same time, we also see evidence suggesting the interconnection between innocence and experience shown by the nurse's calling. In this essay, I will explain these points by examining the relationship between image and meaning in this poem.
             The first two lines of Nurse's Song set the entire poem a background of green meadow and hills with children's voices and laughing echoed, which naturally brings readers a vivid sense of enjoyment of present. Followed that we see the portrait of the nurse, whose heart is at rest. By looking at Blake's drawing in this poem, we see a blonde young lady who is the nurse, dressed in finery, sitting under an oak and reading a book, I again would naturally associate this lady with beauty, prime and of course innocence, for the reason that she can inevitably be seen sharing part of the enjoyment here.
             In the next two stanzas and the first two lines of the last stanza, we see the interaction between the nurse and children, and this is when the nurse's experience comes in. The nurse is trying to persuade the children to go home by saying "the sun is gone down and the dews of night arise", this shows the lady has foreseen the danger that is associated with dark night , and of course this kind of forecast into the future requires experience, therefore now the story extends from the enjoyment of present to the danger of future and it seems to me signs or experience are inevitably emerging out of innocence . Notably the nurse also mentioned "till the morning appears in the skies", which shows an even more complicated interconnection between experience and innocence by suggesting her understanding of the causality of enjoyment and dange...