The River of Life by William Blake

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

September 1, 2022

 

William Blake

 

I must Create a System or be enslav’d by another Man’s.

—William Blake

 

William Blake might be the most imaginative person who ever lived. Along with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley, he is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. His paintings, drawings and etchings are enshrined in museums around the world. He is a Christian, but his Christianity is unique to him. In the English poetic tradition, he saw himself as part of a tradition that included Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton. As a prophet, he saw himself as in the tradition of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jesus, John of Patmos, Dante and Milton. He created his own mythology.

 

In issue #16 (July 2, 2020) of peace, love, happiness & understanding, I included three poems by Blake: “Infant Joy,” “Laughing Song,” and “The School Boy.” These poems illustrated the theme of innocence and experience that I was exploring in that issue—especially how we lose the innocence of our childhood, and the question of whether we can regain that lost innocence

 

(https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-2-20/).

 

 

Here are some of my favorite poems, quotes and writings of William Blake:

 

Love to faults is always blind;

Always is to joy inclin’d,

Lawless, wing’d and unconfin’d,

And breaks all chains from every mind.

*

 

Art Degraded, Imagination Denied, War Governed the Nations.

*

 

Children of the future Age

Reading this indignant page,

Know that in a former time

Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.

*

 

The GARDEN of LOVE

 

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

 

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And “Thou shalt not” writ over the door;

So I turn’d to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore;

 

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be;

And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

*

 

 

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.

*

 

Some aphorisms from “THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL”:

 

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

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

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.

One thought fills immensity.

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

The soul of sweet delight can never be defil’d.

As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

Exuberance is Beauty.

*

 

 

From the Preface to Blake’s poem “Milton”:

 

Shakespeare & Milton were both curb’d by the general malady & infection from the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword.

Rouze up, O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the University, who would, if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War.

*

 

The Little Vagabond

 

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,

But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm:

Besides I can tell where I am us’d well,

Such usage in heaven will never do well.

 

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale,

And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,

We’d sing and we’d pray all the live-long day,

Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

 

Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing,

And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;

And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church,

Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

 

And God, like a father rejoicing to see

His children as pleasant and happy as he,

Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel,

But kiss him, & give him both drink and apparel.

*

 

From “THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL”:

 

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive. 

And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;

Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of, & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;

Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.

And at length they pronounc’d that the Gods had order’d such things.

Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

*

 

From Enion’s lament from “The Four Zoas, Night the Second”:

 

“…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 a 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 & 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 houseless wanderer,

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

When the red blood is fill’d with wine & 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 & 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, & the sickness that cuts off his children,

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

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

And the captive in chains, & the poor in the prison, & 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 & thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.”

*

 

Two passages from “A Vision of the Last Judgment”:

 

Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & govern’d their Passions or have No Passions, but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion, but Realities of Intellect, from which all the Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory. The Fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so Holy. Holiness is not The Price of Enterance into Heaven. Those who are cast out are All Those who, having no Passions of their own because No Intellect, Have spent their lives in Curbing & Governing other People’s by the Various arts of Poverty & Cruelty of all kinds. Wo, Wo, Wo to you Hypocrites.

 

and: 

 

The Last Judgment is an Overwhelming of Bad Art & Science. Mental Things are alone Real; what is call’d Corporeal, Nobody Knows of its Dwelling Place: it is in Fallacy, & its Existence an Imposture. Where is the Existence Out of Mind or Thought? Where is it but in the Mind of a Fool? Some People flatter themselves that there will be No Last Judgment & that Bad Art will be adopted & mixed with Good Art, That Error or Experiment will make a Part of Truth, & they Boast that it is its Foundation; these people flatter themselves: I will not Flatter them. Error is Created. Truth is Eternal. Error, or Creation, will be Burned up, & then, & not till Then, Truth or Eternity will appear. It is Burnt up the Moment Men cease to behold it. I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the Dirt upon my feet, No part of Me. “What,” it will be Question’d, “When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?” O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.’ I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight. I look thro’ it & not with it.

*

 

Blake created a mythology that he elaborated in what are known as his “prophetic” poems. Carl Jung spoke of four basic functions: thinking, feeling, sensing (sense perception), and intuition. Blake had a similar idea. He said: “Four Mighty Ones are in every Man.” These four “zoas” are Los (Imagination), Luvah (Love or Emotion), Urizen (Reason), and Tharmas (the Senses or Body). The biggest difference is that Jung uses the term “intuition,” while Blake uses the term “imagination.” For Blake, a healthy person, or a healthy Humanity, should have these four things in balance. In his day, he felt that Reason had usurped the throne, and everything was tyrannizing over everything else. Imagination, especially, was in prison.

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If these quotes have piqued your interest, start by exploring Blake: Complete Writings, edited by Geoffrey Keynes. Abridged versions of Blake, leave out all kinds of treasures that he wrote in his notebooks, et cetera. A good introduction to William Blake is Eternity’s Sunrise by Leo Damrosch. If you want to really get into William Blake, the best book is Northrop Frye’s Fearful Symmetry. S. Foster Damon’s A Blake Dictionary is a helpful guide to Blake’s mythology. You can find out about Zoas and Enion and Albion and Vala and Nobodaddy and the Eyes of God, et cetera…

 

 

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing which stands in the way.

—William Blake (November 28, 1757-August 12, 1827)