Infant Joy Lyrics
A speaker asks a two-day-old baby what to call them, and the baby answers: "I happy am, Joy is my name." William Blake's twelve-line poem was published in 1789.
Infant Joy
'I have no name;
I am but two days old.'
What shall I call thee?
'I happy am,
Joy is my name.'
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/infant-joy/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- William Blake
- First published
- 1789
- Tune
- Read softly, with a pause after each question
- Best for ages
- 0 to 5 years
What Does Infant Joy Mean?
The poem is a short conversation. In the first verse the baby, two days old, says "I have no name", the speaker asks "What shall I call thee?", and the baby decides: "I happy am, Joy is my name." The speaker answers with a blessing: "Sweet joy befall thee!" In the second verse the speaker turns to the baby and says it back: pretty joy, sweet joy, two days old. The baby smiles, and the speaker sings.
Two old forms need a word. Thee and thou are old ways of saying "you". Befall means to happen to, so "sweet joy befall thee" is a wish: may sweet joy come to you.
Notice that a baby of two days cannot really talk. Blake lets the baby answer anyway, as parents often do when they answer for a small baby.
History and Origin
William Blake published Songs of Innocence in 1789, and Infant Joy is one of its poems. How he made those books by hand is told on The Echoing Green.
The poem is paired in his later book of 1794, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, with a darker poem called Infant Sorrow. Together they show a newborn's joy and distress, but only Infant Joy is told in this quiet, singing voice.
Learning Activities
- Name chat: ask a child what they would call a baby who has no name yet, and why.
- Question and answer: one voice reads the questions and another answers as the baby, then they swap.
- Read to a baby: read it aloud to a younger sibling or cousin, with a smile on the word joy.
- Words for joy: list other words for happy that a baby might choose: glad, merry, cheerful.