The Little Girl Found

by William Blake

　　All the night in woe

　　Lyca’s parents go

　　Over valleys deep,

　　While the deserts weep.

　　Tired and woe-begone,

　　Hoarse with making moan,

　　Arm in arm, seven days

　　They traced the desert ways.

　　Seven nights they sleep

　　Among shadows deep,

　　And dream they see their child

　　Starved in desert wild.

　　Pale through pathless ways

　　The fancied image strays,

　　Famished, weeping, weak,

　　With hollow piteous shriek.

　　Rising from unrest,

　　The trembling woman pressed

　　With feet of weary woe;

　　She could no further go.

　　In his arms he bore

　　Her, armed with sorrow sore;

　　Till before their way

　　A couching lion lay.

　　Turning back was vain:

　　Soon his heavy mane

　　Bore them to the ground,

　　Then he stalked around,

　　Smelling to his prey;

　　But their fears allay

　　When he licks their hands,

　　And silent by them stands.

　　They look upon his eyes,

　　Filled with deep surprise;

　　And wondering behold

　　A spirit armed in gold.

　　On his head a crown,

　　On his shoulders down

　　Flowed his golden hair.

　　Gone was all their care.

　　‘Follow me,’ he said;

　　‘Weep not for the maid;

　　In my palace deep,

　　Lyca lies asleep.’

　　Then they followed

　　Where the vision led,

　　And saw their sleeping child

　　Among tigers wild.

　　To this day they dwell

　　In a lonely dell,

　　Nor fear the wolvish howl

　　Nor the lion’s growl.