The Full Text of “The Ecchoing Green”
1The sun does arise,
2And make happy the skies.
3The merry bells ring
4To welcome the Spring.
5The sky-lark and thrush,
6The birds of the bush,
7Sing louder around,
8To the bells’ cheerful sound.
9While our sports shall be seen
10On the Ecchoing 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 & boys,
19In our youth-time were seen,
20On the Ecchoing 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.
The Full Text of “The Ecchoing Green”
1The sun does arise,
2And make happy the skies.
3The merry bells ring
4To welcome the Spring.
5The sky-lark and thrush,
6The birds of the bush,
7Sing louder around,
8To the bells’ cheerful sound.
9While our sports shall be seen
10On the Ecchoing 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 & boys,
19In our youth-time were seen,
20On the Ecchoing 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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“The Ecchoing Green” Introduction
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William Blake first printed "The Ecchoing Green" in Songs of Innocence, his important 1789 collection. The poem follows one day on the "Ecchoing Green," a village common space where children and the elderly alike gather to play and relax. Through images of old folks remembering their childhoods on a lovely spring day, the poem suggests that human life is just one natural cycle among many: the children who frolic on the green now will one day sit under the old oak tree and watch a new generation play.
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“The Ecchoing Green” Summary
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The sun rises and makes the skies cheerful. The bells ring happily to usher in springtime. All the songbirds, like the skylark and the thrush, sing even louder in order to match the happy sound of the bells. And all the while, we're out playing on the echoing village common.
Elderly, white-haired John laughs his troubles away as he sits under the ancient oak tree with the other elderly people. They chuckle at the children as they play, remembering, "We used to play just like that when we were little children on the village common."
At last, the children are too tired to play anymore. The sun goes down, and our games are over. Children crowd into their mothers' laps like little birds getting ready to sleep in their nests. And as it gets darker and darker, you can't see anyone playing on the village common anymore.
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“The Ecchoing Green” Themes
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Life, Death, and Renewal
William Blake’s “The Ecchoing Green” sees the entire circle of life in one neighborly day on a “green,” a village common space. As elderly folks sit and watch children play on the grass, they happily remember the time when they played in just the same way—reminding readers that these children, too, will one day be elderly people watching a new generation at play. Through its images of “green” growth and a day fading into night, the poem explores the way that the rhythms of human life and death “echo” over and over again, and the comfort that people can take in these echoes.
The people who watch as the children play on the green don’t just enjoy their antics: they remember being children just like these ones, playing just the same games. The children at play now, the poem suggests, will one day take the place of these “old folk”—and there’s something lovely about that. “Old John,” for example, who sits laughing at the children’s games, feels his “care” lighten as he looks on: embracing the natural process of birth, growth, and death, the poem implies, can be a real comfort, helping people to feel as if life goes on and death doesn’t get the last word.
That sense of consoling cyclicality appears not just in the juxtaposition of the young folks with the old, but in the poem’s setting. It’s a beautiful spring day, a time of new life, and the poem follows the whole course of that day from dawn (when the children run out to play) to dusk (when their mothers take them home to bed). This movement from activity to rest metaphorically suggests the whole circle of life, from birth to death. A single day on the “ecchoing green” becomes a microcosm of a pattern that underlies everything from the seasons to society to any one person’s life.
And the poem’s mysterious speaker—a choral “we” who seems both to be among and separate from the children, calling them the “little ones”—further suggests that everyone participates in this circle of life together, playing all the roles of life, from child to adult. Just as this speaker’s voice could belong to anyone and everyone, every person’s experience is connected and shared.
The poem’s titular “Ecchoing Green” thus rings not just with the happy voices of the children, but with layers and layers of time and experience. Even as generations come and go, this poem suggests, they “echo” each other, repeating and repeating the experiences of birth, growth, and death. Everything changes, but everything stays the same, too—and that, the poem suggests, is a cause for joy.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Ecchoing Green”
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Lines 1-8
The sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells’ cheerful sound."The Ecchoing Green" begins with a simple, singsongy depiction of a spring morning in an English village. In jaunty couplets, the speaker imagines that everything in the world is happy simply to exist on a day like this one.
What's more, everything in the world is happy to exist together. In this poem's world, the sunrise makes the personified "skies" happy, and the church bells are "merry" as they "welcome the Spring." And the spring birds get into a singing contest with the bells, chirping ever "louder." Everything seems to be filled with life and joy.
Even the poem's sounds mimic the bells and the birds: the bouncy alliteration of "birds of the bush" and the assonance of "louder around" help readers to imagine themselves right in the middle of this springtime hullaballoo.
Part of the delight of existence here is that it's shared. All these personified things enjoy each other's company. Spring sunlight seems to have brought communal happiness to the whole world. And this sense of collective, joyful life will animate the whole poem.
At a first glance, these are pretty simple and traditional opening lines. The joy of spring is one of the oldest poetic themes there is, and rhymed couplets like those seen here (note how all the poem's lines come in rhyming pairs) are of the commonest forms.
But the personification in these first few lines hints at complexities to come. This poem will explore, not just the way that spring makes the world seem vibrantly alive, but the way that people and nature are intimately connected. And that connection doesn't only mean that people get to enjoy the spring right alongside the skies and the sun: it means that they're bound to natural cycles of birth and death, just as the seasons are.
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Lines 9-10
While our sports shall be seen
On the Ecchoing Green. -
Lines 11-14
Old John, with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk, -
Lines 15-20
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say.
‘Such, such were the joys.
When we all girls & boys,
In our youth-time were seen,
On the Ecchoing Green.’ -
Lines 21-24
Till the little ones weary
No more can be merry
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end: -
Lines 25-28
Round the laps of their mothers,
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest; -
Lines 29-30
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.
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“The Ecchoing Green” Symbols
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The Green
The "Ecchoing Green" itself is a symbol of life, freshness, and renewal.
On a surface level, this green is just a pleasant, parklike space where the people of the village can gather and enjoy themselves. But symbolically, it suggests eternity in more ways than one. Not only does it "echo," suggesting endless repetition, but it's also green, a color symbolically associated with youth and new growth. It's fitting, then, that this "green" is the spot with young children come to play. The "old folk," meanwhile, sit on the sidelines, "under the oak"—a long-lived tree that represents maturity.
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The Oak
The oak tree is a symbol of continuity and maturity.
Because they sprout from tiny acorns and live for centuries, oak trees are a common symbol of both growth and longevity. When the poem refers to the oak as a place where the "old folk" rest, it thus reminds readers that this oak might have been sheltering the village's elderly for years and years. While the children play on the "green," a color linked with new life and vitality, the elderly sit beneath this sturdy, fully-grown plant—a fact that reflects that they, too, are in a more mature stage of their lives.
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Light and Darkness
Light and darkness, morning and night, symbolize the circle of life, from birth until death.
"The Ecchoing Green" begins at sunrise and ends at dusk, following children from the moment they get up and go out to play until the moment they get tired and head home to bed. This one day symbolically represents the whole progress of a human life. These children are in the "morning" of their lives now, but before long they'll be like the "old folk" resting under the tree—and not long after that, their own personal "sun" will set, and they'll die.
By relating sunrise and sunset to the human life cycle, the poem suggests that death is as natural and inevitable as sunset. But it also hints at renewal and rebirth: after every sunset comes a new sunrise.
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“The Ecchoing Green” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Juxtaposition
The poem is built around a major juxtaposition: that between the old and the young. At the same time, the poem makes it clear that the gap between those seemingly distinct groups isn't really all that wide.
The poem's first stanza focuses on the exuberance of the children playing and of the natural world in spring. Everything, from the sun to the skies to the birds, seems full of energy. The children's "sports" go on "while" the world rejoices around them.
In the next stanza, the poem turns to the elderly folks who watch the children at play. Whereas the children are up and running about, these "old folk" sit under an oak tree and reminisce. That oak tree itself symbolizes longevity and maturity, and its presence speaks to the fact that people like "Old John" are in a much different stage of life.
And yet, it's also clear that the "old folk" see the kids as a reflection of their younger selves: these kids are doing exactly what the old people used to do when they were "girls & boys." Even as the poem juxtaposes these groups, then, there's also a sense of continuity here: those kids will one day be sitting under the oak tree, watching a new generation play on the green.
In other words, juxtaposition helps to make this poem's central point: change is life's constant, and everything that lives is part of the same "ecchoing" natural cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
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Repetition
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Simile
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Personification
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Imagery
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Assonance
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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"The Ecchoing Green" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Sky-lark and thrush
- The bush
- Sports
- Green
- Care
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Two species of songbird.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Ecchoing Green”
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Form
"The Ecchoing Green" uses a form of Blake's own invention, and it's both simple and strange. The poem is broken into three 10-line stanzas (or dizains)—a pretty unusual stanza form in English-language poetry. But each of those stanzas also breaks down into five rhyming couplets, which is a far more common shape.
This combination of the large and the small fits right in with the poem's themes. The way these dizains are built from couplets reflects the way that whole lives are built from a series of ordinary days.
The poem's repetitions also reflect its interest in the cycles of life and nature. Each of these stanzas ends with a refrain that brings readers right back to the "Ecchoing Green"—making that echo literal as well as figurative!
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Meter
"The Ecchoing Green" uses a bouncy dimeter throughout. That means that each line uses two strong stresses, like this:
On the Ecch- | oing Green.
But there are a lot of variations within that dimeter. Many of the lines here (like the one quoted above) are in anapestic dimeter, which means they use two anapests, metrical feet with a da-da-DUM rhythm. The poem doesn't strictly stick to anapests, though: it also uses iambs, feet with a da-DUM rhythm, as in lines 3-4:
The mer- | ry bells ring
To wel- | come the Spring.In other words, there's a mixture of steadiness (always two beats) and playfulness (unpredictable feet) here. And that "echoes" this poem's themes! The combination of that reliable, pulselike dimeter and the frolicking variation of iambs and anapests reflect the poem's sense that energetic new life is also part of an ancient, reliable pattern.
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Rhyme Scheme
"The Ecchoing Green" is built from rhymed couplets, like this:
AABBCCDDEE
This tight, steady rhyme scheme fits right in with the poem's interest in childhood and new life: it sounds kind of like a children's song. The vocabulary helps with that effect, too. The rhyme words here tend to be pretty plain, using words you might expect to find in any nursery rhyme: "joys" and "boys," "nest" and "rest."
But the poem creates some subtle effects with this simple pattern. The last two lines of every stanza always return to exactly the same rhyme words: "seen" and "Green." This repetition points to the poem's interest in natural cycles. Everything here just keeps coming back to that endlessly-echoing "Green"—both in the poem's themes and in its rhymes!
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“The Ecchoing Green” Speaker
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The speaker of "The Ecchoing Green" is a chorus. Sometimes, this chorus seems to be the voice of all of the children playing on the green, enjoying "our sports" and "our play." But this chorus also seems to see and notice more than any child could—and to separate itself from the children, as when it notes that the "little ones" have gotten too tired to play.
One possibility is that this mysterious chorus isn't just the children, but people in general. After all, one of the poem's big points is that the "old folk" were once children; as Shakespeare put it, "one man in his time plays many parts." Speaking both as a child and an adult, this poem's speaker might well be the "ecchoing" voice of humanity itself.
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“The Ecchoing Green” Setting
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"The Ecchoing Green" reveals its setting in its title: this poem is set on a green, a village common space for leisure and play. But that green also has mysterious symbolic power.
As a place where the young and old gather together, the "Ecchoing Green" can also be read as the shared stage of existence itself. The green's echoes aren't just the ringing cries of children, but the echoing rhythms of human life: children are born, grow old, and die, and every child playing here now will—if they're lucky—one day take the places of "Old John" and the other "old folk."
The green is thus both a completely ordinary place and an almost mythic one.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Ecchoing Green”
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Literary Context
William Blake (1757-1827) is a poet unlike any other. Often considered one of the earliest of the English Romantics, he also stands apart from any movement as a unique philosopher, prophet, and artist.
Blake first printed "The Ecchoing Green" in Songs of Innocence (1789), one of his most famous and important works. He would later expand this collection into Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), a two-part book that examines what Blake called "the two contrary states of the human soul."
Many of the poems in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience, a twin poem that reads the same subjects from a new perspective. For instance, "The Lamb" and "The Tyger" both explore creation, divinity, and nature—but in very different ways! In this way, some read "The Ecchoing Green" as a counterpart to "The Garden of Love," Blake's tirade against repressive religion and its way of stifling natural "joys and desires."
Blake didn't just write poetry: he also designed, engraved, printed, painted, and published illuminated manuscripts using a technique he called the "infernal method." Blake painted his poems and pictures on copper plates with a resilient ink, then burned away the excess copper in a bath of acid—the opposite of the process most engravers used. But Blake often did the opposite of what other people did, believing that it was his role to "reveal the infinite that was hid" by custom and falsehood.
Even among the often countercultural Romantics, then, Blake was an outlier. Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself—no stranger to a wild vision—once remarked that he was "in the very mire of common-place common-sense compared with Mr. Blake."
While Blake was never widely known during his lifetime, he has become one of the most famous and beloved of poets since his death, and writers from Allen Ginsberg to Olga Tokarczuk to Philip Pullman claim him as a major influence.
Historical Context
"The Ecchoing Green," with its joyfully and endlessly repeating natural cycles, fits right in with a very Romantic belief in the connection between people and nature. Many Romantic poets and philosophers believed that nature could, in the words of Wordsworth, teach people more "than all the sages can." In the Romantics' eyes, the rhythms and beauty of nature held deep and silent wisdom, just waiting for people to come along and absorb it.
This idea was in part a reaction to the Enlightenment, an 18th-century period of scientific and philosophical advancement. The Enlightenment valued order and reason; for instance, this was the period in which the scientist Carl Linnaeus developed a formal taxonomy for classifying plants and animals.
That kind of razor-sharp clarity was all well and good, the Romantics felt, but too much of it and one risked missing out on mystery and humility. The vastness and power of nature, in their eyes, had a way of putting people in their right place, reminding them that they didn't know everything and couldn't control everything.
The Romantic love of nature was also spurred by the Industrial Revolution, which was gathering steam (literally!) when Blake wrote this poem in the late 18th century. An increasingly mechanized and factory-driven society made thinkers like Blake worry that people were losing touch with their place in the natural order—and thus with their humanity. Blake was particularly appalled by the child labor that marked this era, seeing it as a consequence of the way that mechanization and conformism cut people off from their naturally independent imaginations.
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More “The Ecchoing Green” Resources
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External Resources
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Blake's Illuminations — Visit the Blake Archive to see beautiful images of the poem as Blake originally designed and illustrated it.
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More About Blake — Learn more about Blake's life and work at the British Library's website.
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Blake's Music — Read a short article about the music of Blake's poetry.
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The Poem as a Song — Listen to the poem set to music and performed by another important poet, Allen Ginsberg.
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Blake's Influence — Read an interview with the writer Philip Pullman in which Pullman discusses Blake's deep influence on his work.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Blake
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