"Little lamb, who made thee?" In Blake's gentle poem, a child asks a lamb a question and then answers it. Pair it with "The Tyger" to compare innocence and experience. This free worksheet has the full poem with numbered lines, vocabulary, five discussion questions, a writing prompt and an answer key. No signup needed.
Grades 5–8 · Common Core RL.6.4, RL.6.2, RL.6.5 · US Letter PDF, with an answer key on the last page
What’s on the worksheet
"The Lamb" appeared in Blake's Songs of Innocence (1789). Five years later he published Songs of Experience, including "The Tyger," which asks a darker version of the same question. The poem has two ten-line stanzas: the first asks questions, the second answers them. The speaker is a child.
Vocabulary
- thee: you
- thou: you
- bid: told, commanded
- mead: a meadow
- clothing of delight: the lamb's lovely wool
- vales: valleys
- meek: gentle and humble
- mild: soft, calm and kind
Discussion questions
- Who is speaking in the poem, and who is being spoken to?
- List three gifts the speaker says the lamb was given in stanza 1.
- How does the speaker answer the question "who made thee?" in stanza 2?
- What do the child, the lamb and the creator have in common?
- Read "The Tyger." How is its question different from the one in "The Lamb"?
Writing prompt
Write a two-stanza poem to an animal. In stanza 1, ask it questions. In stanza 2, answer them.
The answer key is included in the PDF, on its own page for teachers.