- Title:
- Nurse's Song (Plate 22)
- Additional Title(s):
- Verso: Holy Thursday (Plate 23)
- Part Of:
- Date:
- 1789
- Materials & Techniques:
- Relief etching printed in brown ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
- Dimensions:
- Sheet: 7 1/2 x 5 3/8 inches (19.1 x 13.7 cm), Plate: 4 5/8 x 3 1/8 inches (11.7 x 7.9 cm), Plate: 4 1/2 x 3 1/8 inches (11.4 x 7.9 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "Nurse's Song | When the voices of children are heard on the green | And laughing is heard on the hill, | My heart is at rest within my breast | And everything else is still | Then come home my children the sun is gone down | And the dews of night arise | Come come leave off play, and let us away | Till the morning appears in the skies | No no let us play, for it is yet day | And we cannot go to sleep | Besides in the sky, the little birds fly | And the hills are all coverd with sheep | Well well go & play till the light fades away | And then go home to bed | The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd | And all the hills ecchoed"; Lettered on verso, inside image: "HOLY THURSDAY | Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean | The children walking two & two in red & blue & green | Grey headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow | Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow | O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town | Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own | The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs | Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands | Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song | Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among | Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor | Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door"
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.12(13)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- branches | children | comb | fruit | grapes | leaf | literary theme | men | mother | pairs | procession | text | trees | vegetation | vines | vineyard | walking | women
- Access:
- Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3709
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
YCBA Collections Search
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827, British, Nurse's Song (Plate 22), 1789
If you have information about this object that may be of assistance please contact us.