He is called by thy name,.
For he calls himself a Lamb:.
He is meek & he is mild,.
He became a little child:.
I a child & thou a lamb,.
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Blake is referring to Christ in this stanza and that Christ Himself was a lamb. In line 18 the child tells the lamb that we are all called lambs, we are a part of Christ and all children of God, which leads to thoughts about Heaven and all the requirements to be on the good path to salvation. Even though Blake wanted to present innocence in such a way, he did present it with a sense of humor. It's almost as if he's saying, "I can't believe people will buy into this."" Using rhyming couplets give this illusion of daintiness, perfection and bliss.
Underneath the neat rhyming couplets, Blake does present the potential dangers of Paradise and the belief of separating good from evil in such a black and white manner. He does this through the subtle variations in meter and the structure of the poem. The line are all written in trimeter so that it reads like a ballad or could be sung as a church hymn. This gives the illusion of that, because along with the trimeter are disyllabic and trisyllabic variations. Lines one and two are written in trochaic trimeter. This is incredibly different to the typical use of iambs. There aren't any variations in these two lines, just straight trochees. Even the lines "Little Lamb God bless thee."" The use of trochees places emphasis on these lines not only for their rhythm but also for the importance of the lines. Blake wants to make known what kind of lamb we are reading a about, a "Little Lamb."" The trochees also forces readers to take the question of "Who made you?- into mind. Lines 19 and 20 are the only couplets with spondees. Blake writes, "Little Lamb God bless thee."" The spondee is on the words Lamb and God. This slows the line down to place emphasis on Lamb and God as one unit in the poem and religion.