William Blake; A divine child

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.” - William Blake

     

     William Blake (1757-1827) was an English painter and poet. Largely unread in his lifetime, he is regarded today as among the most important and influential figures in the history of poetry and visual arts. 

     His biographer, Alexander Gilcrist, wrote that Blake "neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work'y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself 'a divine child,' whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and the earth." William Blake (1863).

 As majestic as his many visions are, there is, throughout his work, an abiding, concomitant concern with social justice and racial and sexual equality that could only have been conceived by the mind of a true political radical.  

His best known works include, Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and his engravings for Dante's Divine Comedy.

Below are excerpts from William Blake's writings and several of his paintings and engravings.

“A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent."

“Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed.”

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”

“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.”

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

“The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.”

“Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.”

“I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.”

  

“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.”

“He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.”

“I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity.”

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”

“It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

What is the price of experience?  Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

“A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation. ”

“Every Night and every Morn

Some to Misery are born.

Every Morn and every Night

Some are born to Sweet Delight,

Some are born to Endless Night. ”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

 The Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe;

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,

Night & morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with my smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright;

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veil'd the pole:

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.”

The Fly

Little Fly

Thy summers play,

My thoughtless hand

Has brush'd away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink & sing:

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength & breath:

And the want

Of thought is death;

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live,

Or if I die”

Let the Slave

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field

Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air

Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing

Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary Years

Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;

And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge

They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream

Singing: The sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning

And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night

For empire is no more and now the Lion and Wolf shall cease

For everything that lives is holy

For everything that lives is holy

For everything that lives is holy

For everything that lives is holy.

The Price of Experience

What is the price of Experience? Do men buy it for a song?

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price

Of all that man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy

And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain. It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun

And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,

To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer

To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season

When the red blood is fill'd with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements

To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;

To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast

To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies' house;

To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children,

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill

And the captive in chains and the poor in the prison and the soldier in the field

When the shatter'd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity;

Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me

Esperanza Spalding singing and playing with William Blake's Little Fly. http://harolddlevine.blogspot.com/2012/03/esperanza-spalding-and-william-blake.html

Both Van Morrison and British jazz musician,Mike Westbrook recorded heart rending treatments of selections from Let the Slave/Songs of Experience.

Oberon, Titania and Puck With Fairies Dancing

Illustration to Divine Comedy