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Selected Poems
'To see a World in a Grain of Sand
'And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour'
William Blake wrote some of the most moving and memorable verse in the English language. Deeply committed to visionary and imaginative experience, yet also fiercely engaged with the turbulent politics of his era, he is now recognised as a major contributor to the Romantic Movement.
This edition presents Blake's poems in their literary categories and genres to which they belong: his much-loved lyrics, ballads, comic and satirical verse, descriptive and discursive poems, verse epistles, and, finally, his remarkable 'prophetic' poems, including the whole of his two diffuse epics, Milton and Jerusalem.
Blake's poetry is intellectually challenging as well as formally inventive, and this edition has a substantial critical introduction which places his ideas in the contemporary context of the Enlightenment and the artistic reaction against its key assumptions.
'And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour'
William Blake wrote some of the most moving and memorable verse in the English language. Deeply committed to visionary and imaginative experience, yet also fiercely engaged with the turbulent politics of his era, he is now recognised as a major contributor to the Romantic Movement.
This edition presents Blake's poems in their literary categories and genres to which they belong: his much-loved lyrics, ballads, comic and satirical verse, descriptive and discursive poems, verse epistles, and, finally, his remarkable 'prophetic' poems, including the whole of his two diffuse epics, Milton and Jerusalem.
Blake's poetry is intellectually challenging as well as formally inventive, and this edition has a substantial critical introduction which places his ideas in the contemporary context of the Enlightenment and the artistic reaction against its key assumptions.
547 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
William Blake
1,238 books3,215 followersWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake's work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts.
Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the language". His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Although he only once travelled any further than a day's walk outside London over the course of his life, his creative vision engendered a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced 'imagination' as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself".
Once considered mad for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical and mystical currents that underlie his work. His work has been characterized as part of the Romantic movement, or even "Pre-Romantic", for its largely having appeared in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the established Church, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Emanuel Swedenborg.
Despite these known influences, the originality and singularity of Blake's work make it difficult to classify. One 19th century scholar characterised Blake as a "glorious luminary", "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."
Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the language". His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Although he only once travelled any further than a day's walk outside London over the course of his life, his creative vision engendered a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced 'imagination' as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself".
Once considered mad for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical and mystical currents that underlie his work. His work has been characterized as part of the Romantic movement, or even "Pre-Romantic", for its largely having appeared in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the established Church, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Emanuel Swedenborg.
Despite these known influences, the originality and singularity of Blake's work make it difficult to classify. One 19th century scholar characterised Blake as a "glorious luminary", "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews
December 28, 2020
"There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott."
- Wordsworth on William Blake
While it may have worked for Wordsworth, Blake’s madness doesn’t do much for me. Maybe we’re overused to it now.
Reputation – 4/5
William Blake spent his life working as an engraver of other people’s books. In his own time and with his own money he published small editions of his own poetry with original illustrations. None of it made any impression on anyone and he was practically unknown when he died in 1827. Two generations of Romantic poets glossed over him; Wordsworth’s above comment being the only mention made of him by any of the great Romantics.
But by the middle of the 20th Century, Blake had become the most widely studied and interpreted poet in English. Poets, hippies, and academics alike praised his work and searched for meaning in it. What had happened?
Point – 2/5
Blake had become a prophet.
Taking his poetry and visual art together, a century of over-interpreters had found a new puzzle in William Blake. His cryptic metaphors, his sustained darkness and pessimism, and the strangeness of his engravings gave the impression that, cloaked under the madness, there was a structured cosmology invented by an original genius.
There can be no doubt that Blake was an original. His visual art, though crude and childlike when compared with professionally trained artists of any period, does create a strong impression. When seen side-by-side with his poetry, the cumulative weirdness of both does make one feel that there is something below the surface. When seen in this light, it’s really no surprise that Blake became very popular among people like Allen Ginsberg and Jim Morrison, who must have spent many drugged nights repeating the kind of mysterious phrases that are the backbone of Blake’s poetry:
”To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”
“The Lamb misused breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers Knife.”
”He who shall hurt the little wren shall never be beloved by men.”
“No bird soars too high. if he soars with his own wings.”
These are admittedly fascinating. They shamelessly beg interpretation. And that is at once their success and failure.
The only way to consider Blake a great writer is to consider him a prophet, to take phrases like the above and to try to make sense of them. Blake’s works of “prophecy” are laden with aphorisms that, out of context, sound pregnant with meaning. But when they are actually read one after another in the shape of a poem, they are just a string of empty phrases, unconnected with one another by any comprehensible logic. After 11 other senseless phrases that don’t sound as good, you come across a 12th like the ones quoted above – terse, dazzling, and strange.
Works like “The Auguries of Innocence” are collections of these rambling prophecies, ongoing assemblages of hit or miss proverbs. This is the basis of Blake’s poetics.
What Blake truly lacks is sustained concentration and attention. This is not surprising in a person who is called mad even by his most fervent admirers. Wordsworth was absolutely right: Blake was a madman. And not merely a madman, but one tending to the darker side of life. To Blake, everything is:
“weeping” – appears 36 times in the 80 or so pages of text,
“tears” - 34 times,
“crying” - 30 times,
“dark” - 29 times,
“woe” - 20 times,
“pride” - 18 times,
“pitiful” - 16 times,
“sorrow” - 15 times,
“Satan” - 12 times, or
“lion” - 16 times.
That Blake was a tortured crazy man, there can be no question. To call him a tortured genius really says much more about the age interpreting him than about Blake himself.
Now, we are simply living in an age in which we are more interested in madness than in sanity. We love a good tortured soul, and we love trying to figure out what they were trying to say.
Recommendation – 4/5
If you love the persecuted, lonely artist, struggling against poverty and society to express his wild vision, then let me tell you, you are going to LOVE William Blake. He’s the archetypal madman artist and poet. The only other crazy person that comes close is Van Gogh, and even he was monotonously normal compared to Blake. If you like poetry because you like to get stoned and read it in the middle of the night with a few candles lit while spacey music plays in the background, then Blake is your man. If you’re a graduate student in literature who wants to find a subject to talk about that no one will understand, here, take this book. Hell, this book isn’t crazy enough, go take Blake’s Jerusalem off the shelves and see what you can find in there.
I may sound like I’m being facetious, but the three types I have described above make up a large proportion of the people that read poetry for pleasure. So, 4/5.
Enjoyment – 2/5
For me, though – 2/5.
Blake’s craziness doesn’t do it for me. To sit there pouring over clumsy phrases like
“Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer understands.”
No thank you. When Blake is understandable his language is awkward, when he is cryptic, he is occasionally beautiful, but always crazy. To my mind there are much more profound and universal things to try to interpret than the scribblings of an amateur poet living in England in the late 18th Century. If I were interested in that sort of obsessiveness, I would choose a wider and more worthwhile mind. Joyce’s, for example.
There are endless interpretations of Blake. But to me he seems like a bit of a con man on top of being a madman. His fight against the Reason of Newton and Voltaire is noble in the sense of the Romantic, but in Blake it ends in the tyranny of impenetrable and incomplete individual mythologies that are too devoid of reason to offer a key to them. But by making himself out to be a declared enemy of Reason, Blake is begging to be interpreted on his own terms. Clever bait. And one that our academics never get tired of taking.
- Wordsworth on William Blake
While it may have worked for Wordsworth, Blake’s madness doesn’t do much for me. Maybe we’re overused to it now.
Reputation – 4/5
William Blake spent his life working as an engraver of other people’s books. In his own time and with his own money he published small editions of his own poetry with original illustrations. None of it made any impression on anyone and he was practically unknown when he died in 1827. Two generations of Romantic poets glossed over him; Wordsworth’s above comment being the only mention made of him by any of the great Romantics.
But by the middle of the 20th Century, Blake had become the most widely studied and interpreted poet in English. Poets, hippies, and academics alike praised his work and searched for meaning in it. What had happened?
Point – 2/5
Blake had become a prophet.
Taking his poetry and visual art together, a century of over-interpreters had found a new puzzle in William Blake. His cryptic metaphors, his sustained darkness and pessimism, and the strangeness of his engravings gave the impression that, cloaked under the madness, there was a structured cosmology invented by an original genius.
There can be no doubt that Blake was an original. His visual art, though crude and childlike when compared with professionally trained artists of any period, does create a strong impression. When seen side-by-side with his poetry, the cumulative weirdness of both does make one feel that there is something below the surface. When seen in this light, it’s really no surprise that Blake became very popular among people like Allen Ginsberg and Jim Morrison, who must have spent many drugged nights repeating the kind of mysterious phrases that are the backbone of Blake’s poetry:
”To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”
“The Lamb misused breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers Knife.”
”He who shall hurt the little wren shall never be beloved by men.”
“No bird soars too high. if he soars with his own wings.”
These are admittedly fascinating. They shamelessly beg interpretation. And that is at once their success and failure.
The only way to consider Blake a great writer is to consider him a prophet, to take phrases like the above and to try to make sense of them. Blake’s works of “prophecy” are laden with aphorisms that, out of context, sound pregnant with meaning. But when they are actually read one after another in the shape of a poem, they are just a string of empty phrases, unconnected with one another by any comprehensible logic. After 11 other senseless phrases that don’t sound as good, you come across a 12th like the ones quoted above – terse, dazzling, and strange.
Works like “The Auguries of Innocence” are collections of these rambling prophecies, ongoing assemblages of hit or miss proverbs. This is the basis of Blake’s poetics.
What Blake truly lacks is sustained concentration and attention. This is not surprising in a person who is called mad even by his most fervent admirers. Wordsworth was absolutely right: Blake was a madman. And not merely a madman, but one tending to the darker side of life. To Blake, everything is:
“weeping” – appears 36 times in the 80 or so pages of text,
“tears” - 34 times,
“crying” - 30 times,
“dark” - 29 times,
“woe” - 20 times,
“pride” - 18 times,
“pitiful” - 16 times,
“sorrow” - 15 times,
“Satan” - 12 times, or
“lion” - 16 times.
That Blake was a tortured crazy man, there can be no question. To call him a tortured genius really says much more about the age interpreting him than about Blake himself.
Now, we are simply living in an age in which we are more interested in madness than in sanity. We love a good tortured soul, and we love trying to figure out what they were trying to say.
Recommendation – 4/5
If you love the persecuted, lonely artist, struggling against poverty and society to express his wild vision, then let me tell you, you are going to LOVE William Blake. He’s the archetypal madman artist and poet. The only other crazy person that comes close is Van Gogh, and even he was monotonously normal compared to Blake. If you like poetry because you like to get stoned and read it in the middle of the night with a few candles lit while spacey music plays in the background, then Blake is your man. If you’re a graduate student in literature who wants to find a subject to talk about that no one will understand, here, take this book. Hell, this book isn’t crazy enough, go take Blake’s Jerusalem off the shelves and see what you can find in there.
I may sound like I’m being facetious, but the three types I have described above make up a large proportion of the people that read poetry for pleasure. So, 4/5.
Enjoyment – 2/5
For me, though – 2/5.
Blake’s craziness doesn’t do it for me. To sit there pouring over clumsy phrases like
“Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer understands.”
No thank you. When Blake is understandable his language is awkward, when he is cryptic, he is occasionally beautiful, but always crazy. To my mind there are much more profound and universal things to try to interpret than the scribblings of an amateur poet living in England in the late 18th Century. If I were interested in that sort of obsessiveness, I would choose a wider and more worthwhile mind. Joyce’s, for example.
There are endless interpretations of Blake. But to me he seems like a bit of a con man on top of being a madman. His fight against the Reason of Newton and Voltaire is noble in the sense of the Romantic, but in Blake it ends in the tyranny of impenetrable and incomplete individual mythologies that are too devoid of reason to offer a key to them. But by making himself out to be a declared enemy of Reason, Blake is begging to be interpreted on his own terms. Clever bait. And one that our academics never get tired of taking.
March 19, 2019
It was a required reading at English poetry seminar in college. Nice collection.
March 19, 2020
Exuberantly, rapturously Christ-centered
January 9, 2026
Many of Blake’s contemporaries thought he was mad. However, madness sometimes produces genius. Songs of Innocence, The Book of Thel and short poems like The Fly show his eloquence and madness.
Read now twice. Loved the imagery and using the internet linked the plates mentioned in the poems. He lived in interesting times 1757-1827 with much of it in poverty.
Read now twice. Loved the imagery and using the internet linked the plates mentioned in the poems. He lived in interesting times 1757-1827 with much of it in poverty.
March 2, 2016
Okay, so I read this, and am afraid that it brought me to the conclusion that Blake is overrated. But glad to have read him, and there were some striking lines. Okay, so it was worth it.
October 25, 2023
Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror, the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress
The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.
December 20, 2021
The more I read Blake’s poems, the more he grows on me. At times I thought he must have been mad, but line by line he by and large won me over to the beauty and magnificence and even truth of his vision. Two centuries after Blake we have authors by the score with dystopian visions, with little more to offer than solitary individuals who maintain some shred of their humanity in an ocean of cruelty and violence.
William Blake shows us the world’s injustice and wickedness, but he doesn’t leave us there, drowning in despair. He wants to cast out a lifeline. I think he means that injustice and wickedness are symptoms of what’s gone wrong with us, I.e., a failure of poetic imagination and vision, and our capitulation to a subhuman, “Newtonian” materialism and utilitarianism. The these things are jarringly foreign to the eternal, massive reality of Love and will in the end be wiped away.
You might not buy Blake’s worldview, or quite understand it (not sure I got it right myself actually), but the beauty of his language and imagery gave me an irresistible foretaste of where he wants to lead us.
William Blake shows us the world’s injustice and wickedness, but he doesn’t leave us there, drowning in despair. He wants to cast out a lifeline. I think he means that injustice and wickedness are symptoms of what’s gone wrong with us, I.e., a failure of poetic imagination and vision, and our capitulation to a subhuman, “Newtonian” materialism and utilitarianism. The these things are jarringly foreign to the eternal, massive reality of Love and will in the end be wiped away.
You might not buy Blake’s worldview, or quite understand it (not sure I got it right myself actually), but the beauty of his language and imagery gave me an irresistible foretaste of where he wants to lead us.
December 29, 2022
Blake's poetry ranges from simple and beautiful pastoral praise of nature and childhood to a much darker place of evil and demons to a fantastic world that defies easy description. I couldn't help feeling that even in the pastoral poems there was something wicked hiding an inch below the surface. Blake was crazy and subversive, which explains why, despite his fame, we didn't read him in high school. Maybe we read Tyger Tyger, but I can't remember and think that I was probably exposed to that famous poem someplace else outside of school.
When I was in college, I had a summer job one year at the rare book library where they had all of the original illuminated editions of Blake's poems. I remember being struck by the strange beauty of the pictures and thinking that I should take the time to read the poetry, but I didn't. Now in finally getting around to Blake many years later, I chose an audio book, so no pictures, but with poetry the audio helps to bring out the beauty of the language, so I think that it was worth the trade off.
When I was in college, I had a summer job one year at the rare book library where they had all of the original illuminated editions of Blake's poems. I remember being struck by the strange beauty of the pictures and thinking that I should take the time to read the poetry, but I didn't. Now in finally getting around to Blake many years later, I chose an audio book, so no pictures, but with poetry the audio helps to bring out the beauty of the language, so I think that it was worth the trade off.
July 24, 2022
Wonderful. I have only just discovered the poems of William Blake, but now that I have I will never stop reading them. In fact, I have read through this collection four time since I got it, and have listened to it being read on the Audible version as well. I don’t have anything clever or philosophical to say about the poems (I’m not very good at commenting on poetry, as I am proving now) but many other people have done so in their reviews (which are worth reading).
December 10, 2019
I always loved the mysticism of Blake's poetry as well as the accompanying artwork. Note that there is currently an exposition of Blake's work in London at the British until early Jan 2020.
January 24, 2021
Blake was hit and miss for me. Maybe it was his cadence or rhythm, or perhaps I often didn’t know what he was referring to, so was lost for context, but I didn’t find a much resonance as I had expected. I certainly enjoyed some, and found multiple nuggets of delight, but much of the rest I found less than captivating. I confess I’m a novice poetry reader — I would likely benefit from more historical context and poetry training and end up appreciating Blake more.
March 30, 2016
Oh wow, I finished it!! It was interesting and I enjoyed most of it and Iam really proud that I finally managed to read this glorious work.
I`ll wanted to read some of Blakes work for so long that I really can`t believe that I really did it!!
I`ll wanted to read some of Blakes work for so long that I really can`t believe that I really did it!!
April 25, 2023
I think William Blake had too much free time on his hands
October 13, 2025
big fan of the little singing clod of clay
November 18, 2023
Note that I only read the intro, the poems from Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience, as well as all the other short poems. Couldn't be bothered to read the longer ones even though I did start some of them. One of the main reasons why I didn't read those is because they seemed to be based on religious stories - and I dont feel like reading them, especially on my own without someone guiding me through the Christian suggestions.
To be frank some poems werent that good in my opinion? But at the same time, some poems from SoI and SoR are really good and I really enjoyed reading them multiple times and analyzing them. My favorites include:
- The Schoolboy (SOI)
- Holy Thursday (SOE)
- London (SOE)
- Eternity
- The Chimney-Sweeper (SOI)
- Nurse's Song (SOI)
*please keep in mind that some of these poem titles can be found in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, but they are different poems.
To be frank some poems werent that good in my opinion? But at the same time, some poems from SoI and SoR are really good and I really enjoyed reading them multiple times and analyzing them. My favorites include:
- The Schoolboy (SOI)
- Holy Thursday (SOE)
- London (SOE)
- Eternity
- The Chimney-Sweeper (SOI)
- Nurse's Song (SOI)
*please keep in mind that some of these poem titles can be found in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, but they are different poems.
January 17, 2024
Not my favourite poet. Some pleasant nature imagery, and the sound and flow of the poems was satisfying to read. Some pretty epic (probably not the right word!) stuff on hell also, but ultimately didn’t move me.
March 29, 2025
Well read poems of Blake. Whimsical some, lyrical all. Satire and critiquing of contemporaries are frequent highlights
March 4, 2016
He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio sees himself only.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is
William Blake - aside from being a genius - is perhaps one of the most quoted poets in the world (just read Auguries of Innocence), and he can also claim to have given inspiration to Jim Morrison (via Aldous Huxley) when he was looking for the name of his band:
If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern
Despite some abstruse bits in his more religious pieces, I particularly enjoyed the beautiful simplicity in the collection from Songs of Innocence and Experience – themes such as detachment from the material world in ‘Eternity’:
He who binds himself to joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kissed the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise
Or the two extremes of love in ‘The Clod and the Pebble’:
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another give its ease
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair
Or how we should seize the day before the inevitable loss of the proverbial ‘summer’ of our lives:
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year
When the blasts of winter appear?
If you were to read him quietly to yourself, after a while it sounds and feels like a prayer-an ode to joy, peace and pastoral beauty. And for a long time after, the words vibrate in your soul, a reminder of the gentle, restorative power of Nature - Nature as the perfect state of Man - that the modern world has forgotten.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is
William Blake - aside from being a genius - is perhaps one of the most quoted poets in the world (just read Auguries of Innocence), and he can also claim to have given inspiration to Jim Morrison (via Aldous Huxley) when he was looking for the name of his band:
If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern
Despite some abstruse bits in his more religious pieces, I particularly enjoyed the beautiful simplicity in the collection from Songs of Innocence and Experience – themes such as detachment from the material world in ‘Eternity’:
He who binds himself to joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kissed the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise
Or the two extremes of love in ‘The Clod and the Pebble’:
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another give its ease
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair
Or how we should seize the day before the inevitable loss of the proverbial ‘summer’ of our lives:
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year
When the blasts of winter appear?
If you were to read him quietly to yourself, after a while it sounds and feels like a prayer-an ode to joy, peace and pastoral beauty. And for a long time after, the words vibrate in your soul, a reminder of the gentle, restorative power of Nature - Nature as the perfect state of Man - that the modern world has forgotten.
December 22, 2017
I truly wanted to venture into poetry and somehow get out of my comfort zone .
While I truly found some really beautiful poems and loved how they made me ponder their true meaning, I just don't care about the rest ...
The more this collection of poems sat in my nightstand the more I got disinterested in it and have stressed out about needing to finish it before the year ends.
Now though I think that I should let it go and not burden myself with it in 2018.
I think I need to explore more poets and their poetry , maybe different collections for sir Blake ...
I feel mournful about DNFing it but I have to be honest with myself , I just don't see myself ever picking it up again.
While I truly found some really beautiful poems and loved how they made me ponder their true meaning, I just don't care about the rest ...
The more this collection of poems sat in my nightstand the more I got disinterested in it and have stressed out about needing to finish it before the year ends.
Now though I think that I should let it go and not burden myself with it in 2018.
I think I need to explore more poets and their poetry , maybe different collections for sir Blake ...
I feel mournful about DNFing it but I have to be honest with myself , I just don't see myself ever picking it up again.
July 22, 2018
"The Divine Image"
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
January 12, 2023
One of the scariest forms of insanity for me is religious insanity: zealotry, if you will.
William Blake is no doubt a terrifyingly terrific example of that. The final pages of the book, from the story "Jerusalem", emanate an ominous, almost cultlike devotion for the christian god, and at one point it became so incoherent to little old biblically illiterate me that it began to resemble the ramblings of a disturbed (apologies for stigmatizing word usage) person.
The poems were great though ngl, 4 stars :)
William Blake is no doubt a terrifyingly terrific example of that. The final pages of the book, from the story "Jerusalem", emanate an ominous, almost cultlike devotion for the christian god, and at one point it became so incoherent to little old biblically illiterate me that it began to resemble the ramblings of a disturbed (apologies for stigmatizing word usage) person.
The poems were great though ngl, 4 stars :)
November 29, 2018
Reading Blake's poetry is a major trip...without any of the side effects or physical drawbacks of actual drugs. The commentary that introduces each section is invaluable for fully understanding and appreciating Blake's amazing talent. The man was a genius and a prophet. Edify yourself; read some Blake.
July 5, 2024
William Blake likes England and God, and I love that for him! His poetry is very well-written and certain poems really strike a chord with me. However, some do feel a little stuffy. Overall, I would say that I definitely want to explore more of his poetry after reading this book so I can further familiarize myself with his work.
January 9, 2021
The best here is excellent—Innocence and Experience, Jerusalem, and especially Heaven and Hell. The rest I could do with in smaller quantities. Blake is endlessly inventive, but I can't bring myself to care about his British mythopoeia the way I care about his philosophy and politics.
December 21, 2010
Moments of brilliance amongst confusion. Definitely recommended.
February 24, 2011
Clever. Brilliant. Thought provoking.
February 16, 2016
Blake for me is a good poet with some thought provoking words. Some poetry of his is a bit too religious for me, but this is a good selection overall.
December 27, 2022
Bellissimo. Completissimo. Molto interessante.
Una raccolta fuori dal comune ma mette in luce gli aspetti più importanti dell'autore, a differenza del nostro libro di letteratura -.-
Non voglio ridarlo alla biblioteca :(
Traducción (y contexto) para mi amiga:
Este es un libro que pillé en la biblioteca sin saber de qué hablaba, solo porque no encontraba el libro que quería al principio y me había quedado con ganas ajajjaja
Medio libro son poesías de William Blake y la otra mitad es un ensayo de Georges Bataille y otro de Annamaria Laserra sobre Georges Bataille ☠️. Bastante complicado de leer sobretodo porque cita en francés sin traducir y habla con el lenguaje de Jung, Nietzsche y Freud. Pero lo poco que he entendido lo he adorado :) Fan de Blake desde septiembre 2022 jajaja
Una raccolta fuori dal comune ma mette in luce gli aspetti più importanti dell'autore, a differenza del nostro libro di letteratura -.-
Non voglio ridarlo alla biblioteca :(
Traducción (y contexto) para mi amiga:
Este es un libro que pillé en la biblioteca sin saber de qué hablaba, solo porque no encontraba el libro que quería al principio y me había quedado con ganas ajajjaja
Medio libro son poesías de William Blake y la otra mitad es un ensayo de Georges Bataille y otro de Annamaria Laserra sobre Georges Bataille ☠️. Bastante complicado de leer sobretodo porque cita en francés sin traducir y habla con el lenguaje de Jung, Nietzsche y Freud. Pero lo poco que he entendido lo he adorado :) Fan de Blake desde septiembre 2022 jajaja
July 23, 2024
read this after learning of allen ginsberg's william blake sunflower masturbation hallucination. ive memorized "Ah! Sunflower" now and recite it in my brain whenever im bored at work and want to pass the time. i liked most of blake but i know i definitely need to read more poetry in general (maybe especially Old poetry though) to get a better understanding of the medium and grasp of its Form. there were a couple particular ones i liked but the only one coming to mind is "The Tyger". i really like his imagery and how much Feeling and Mood he manages to evoke in such short descriptive phrases. "Night" was another good one, very peaceful but vivid.
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