Save for the last poem set, "Eternity," the Ten Blake Songs are taken from William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Vaughan Williams wrote these miniature masterpieces of melody and economy over the Christmas holidays in 1957, scoring them for voice and oboe. Written to accompany Guy Brenton's 1958 Morse Films production, The Vision of William Blake, the songs received their first concert performance on the BBC's Third Programme, October 8, 1958, a little over a month after the composer's death. They are dedicated to tenor Wilfrid Brown and oboist Janet Craxton, who performed them in the movie (omitting two of the songs; the rest of the soundtrack was filled out with excerpts from Vaughan Williams' 1930 Blake-inspired ballet, Job). Far from being the simplistic settings their minimal scoring might suggest, the Ten Blake Songs are richly developed works, partaking of Vaughan Williams' late style, and their sound has much in common with the darkly glowing mood of such final works as the Symphony No. 9. The songs move easily from folk-like modal shapes ("The Piper," "The Shepherd") to anguished chromaticism, even dissonance ("A Poison Tree," "London," "Cruelty has a human heart"). No great technical demands are made of singer or oboist in these songs, but interpretive skill is very much challenged: the singer must be always alert to the sense of the words (and here Vaughan Williams provides his usual exemplary assistance, thanks to a remarkable sensitivity to language) but ever mindful of the supple shape of the melody; while the oboist must at once be discreet accompanist, wise commentator, and equal partner in dialogue with the singer. Three of the songs ("London," "The Shepherd" and "The Divine Image") are for voice alone, and Vaughan Williams' monodies are all the more remarkable for their ability to imply their rich harmonic context.

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