Songs of Innocence: Night 1789 - 1825

"Night" is a hand-colored relief etching from William Blake’s *Songs of Innocence*, a collection of poems published in 1789. The image, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows an idealized landscape with a single tree. Blake’s *Songs of Innocence* was meant to be an antidote to the harsh realities of the Industrial Revolution. The “Night” engraving, though, depicts a peaceful, even supernatural night, with an emphasis on God’s protecting presence and the comforting promise of sleep.