The Little Girl Found

In the poem, the parents of a seven-year-old girl, called Lyca, are looking desperately for their young daughter who is lost in the desert.

During days and nights they go on looking for the girl up to the moment they find a lion which tells them where the child lies.

[1] At last, a spirit guides them to her: Then they followed, Where the vision led: And saw their sleeping child, Among tygers wild.

To this day they dwell In a lonely dell Nor fear the wolvish howl, Nor the lions growl.

Crucially, this poem gives hope in the surrounding bleak view of Songs of Experience, and is an effective example of a retreat into nature to learn and develop, an important motif in pastoral literature.