Composition

The outer composition (stanzas, verses, graphical expression) and inner composition (beginning, subdivision, course) of poems like “The Echoing Green” by William Blake are analytical elements which can give you a general understanding of how the form and content of lyrical texts are connected.

Outer composition

“The Ecchoing Green” is a 30-lines poem organised symmetrically, as each stanza is comprised of ten, rather short, verses. The verses rhyme two by two, in couplets. This rhyme scheme is also known as nursery rhyme, as it is often used in children’s poems or songs. Here is how the end rhyme sounds:

The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring. (p. 202, ll. 1-4)

Apart from the end rhyme, the poet also creates musicality through several alliterations, repeating the same letters in close by words such as “birds of the bush” (p. 202, l. 6) or “till the little ones” (p. 203, l. 1). Here is one example in which alliteration is created by repeating the letter ‘s’:

The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies. (p. 202, ll. 1-2)

Assonance — the repetition of the same vowels in close by words — is also present: “Among the old ...