Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (155 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
William Blake (1757–1827)
Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
‘And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.’
The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,
‘Lo, what a fiend is here! said he:
‘One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy mystery.’
The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,
And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such thing done on Albion’s shore?
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,
The little boy weeping sought.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
Children of the future age,
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.
In the age of gold,
Free from winter’s cold,
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.
Once a youthful pair,
Filled with softest care,
Met in garden bright
Where the holy light
Had just removed the curtains of the night.
Then, in rising day,
On the grass they play;
Parents were afar,
Strangers came not near,
And the maiden soon forgot her fear.
Tired with kisses sweet,
They agree to meet
When the silent sleep
Waves o’er heaven’s deep,
And the weary tired wanderers weep.
To her father white
Came the maiden bright;
But his loving look,
Like the holy book
All her tender limbs with terror shook.
‘Ona, pale and weak,
To thy father speak!
Oh the trembling fear!
Oh the dismal care
That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
All the night in woe,
Lyca’s parents go:
Over vallies deep.
While the desarts weep.
Tired and woe-begone.
Hoarse with making moan:
Arm in arm seven days.
They trac’d the desert ways.
Seven nights they sleep.
Among shadows deep:
And dream they see their child
Starvdd in desart wild.
Pale thro’ pathless ways
The fancied image strays.
Famish’d, weeping, weak
With hollow piteous shriek
Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman prest,
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.
In his arms he bore.
Her arm’d with sorrow sore:
Till before their way
A couching lion lay.
Turning back was vain,
Soon his heavy mane.
Bore them to the ground;
Then he stalk’d around.
Smelling to his prey,
But their fears allay,
When he licks their hands:
And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes
Fill’d with deep surprise:
And wondering behold.
A spirit arm’d in gold.
On his head a crown
On his shoulders down,
Flow’d his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.
Follow me he said,
Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep.
Lyca lies asleep.
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 lion’s growl.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
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 turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
FRESH from the dewy hill, the merry year
Smiles on my head and mounts his flaming car;
Round my young brows the laurel wreathes a shade,
And rising glories beam around my head.
My feet are wing’d, while o’er the dewy lawn,
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I meet my maiden risen like the morn:
Oh bless those holy feet, like angel’s feet;
Oh bless those limbs, beaming with heav’nly light.
Like as an angel glitt’ring in the sky
In times of innocence and holy joy;
10
The joyful shepherd stops his grateful song
To hear the music of an angel’s tongue.
So when she speaks, the voice of heaven I hear;
So when we walk, nothing impure comes near;
Each field seems Eden, and each calm retreat,
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Each village seems the haunt of holy feet.
But that sweet village where my black-ey’d maid
Closes her eyes in sleep beneath night’s shade,
Whene’er I enter, more than mortal fire
Burns in my soul, and does my song inspire.
20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Blake (1757–1827)
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she did depart!
Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly
He took her with a sigh.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.
This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev’ry morn
Awakes me at sun-rise, then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild song.
Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:
Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.
In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey
10
A black water accumulates, return Albion! return!
Thy brethren call thee, and thy fathers, and thy sons,
Thy nurses and thy mothers, thy sisters and thy daughters
Weep at thy souls disease, and the Divine Vision is darkend:
Thy Emanation that was wont to play before thy face,
Beaming forth with her daughters into the Divine bosom [
Where!!
]
Where hast thou hidden thy Emanation lovely Jerusalem
From the vision and fruition of the Holy-one?
I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
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Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!
Ye are my members O ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!
But the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark;
[
Saying. We are not One: we are Many, thou most simulative
]
Phantom of the over heated brain! shadow of immortality!
Seeking to keep my soul a victim to thy Love! which binds
Man the enemy of man into deceitful friendships:
Jerusalem is not! her daughters are indefinite:
By demonstration, man alone can live, and not by faith.
My mountains are my own, and I will keep them to myself:
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The Malvern and the Cheviot, the Wolds Plinlimmon & Snowdon
Are mine, here will I build my Laws of Moral Virtue:
Humanity shall be no more: but war & princedom & victory!
So spoke Albion in jealous fears, hiding his Emanation
Upon the Thames and Medway, rivers of Beulah: dissembling
His jealousy before the throne divine, darkening, cold!
PLATE 5
The banks of the Thames are clouded: the ancient porches of Albion are
Darken’d! they are drawn thro’ unbounded space, scatter’d upon
The Void in incoherent despair! Cambridge & Oxford & London,
Are driven among the starry Wheels, rent away and dissipated,
In Chasms & Abysses of sorrow, enlarg’d without dimension, terrible
Albions mountains run with blood, the cries of war & of tumult
Resound into the unbounded night, every Human perfection
Of mountain & river & city, are small & wither’d & darken’d
Cam is a little stream! Ely is almost swallowd up!
10
Lincoln & Norwich stand trembling on the brink of Udan-Adan!
Wales and Scotland shrink themselves to the west and to the north!
Mourning for fear of the warriors in the Vale of Entuthon-Benython
Jerusalem is scatterd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro’ non-entity:
Moab & Ammon & Amalek & Canaan & Egypt & Aram
Recieve her little-ones for sacrifices and the delights of cruelty
Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish’d at me.
Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
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Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination
O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love:
Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life!
Guide thou my hand which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages,
While I write of the building of Golgonooza, & of the terrors of Entuthon:
Of Hand & Hyle & Coban, of Kwantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton:
Of the terrible sons & daughters of Albion, and their Generations.
Scofield! Kox, Kotope and Bowen, revolve most mightily upon
The Furnace of Los: before the eastern gate bending their fury.
They war, to destroy the Furnaces, to desolate Golgonooza:
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And to devour the Sleeping Humanity of Albion in rage & hunger.
They revolve into the Furnaces Southward & are driven forth Northward
Divided into Male and Female forms time after time.
From these Twelve all the Families of England spread abroad.
The Male is a Furnace of beryll; the Female is a golden Loom;
I behold them and their rushing fires overwhelm my Soul,
In Londons darkness; and my tears fall day and night,
Upon the Emanations of Albions Sons! the Daughters of Albion
Names anciently rememberd, but now contemn’d as fictions:
Although in every bosom they controll our Vegetative powers.
40
These are united into Tirzah and her Sisters, on Mount Gilead,
Cambel & Gwendolen & Conwenna & Cordella & Ignoge.
And these united into Rahab in the Covering Cherub on Euphrates
Gwiniverra & Gwinefred, & Gonorill & Sabrina beautiful,
Estrild, Mehetabel & Ragan, lovely Daughters of Albion,
They are the beautiful Emanations of the Twelve Sons of Albion
The Starry Wheels revolv’d heavily over the Furnaces;
Drawing Jerusalem in anguish of maternal love,
Eastward a pillar of a cloud with Vala upon the mountains
Howling in pain, redounding from the arms of Beulahs Daughters,
50
Out from the Furnaces of Los above the head of Los.
A pillar of smoke writhing afar into Non-Entity, redounding
Till the cloud reaches afar outstretch’d among the Starry Wheels
Which revolve heavily in the mighty Void above the Furnaces
O what avail the loves & tears of Beulahs lovely Daughters
They hold the Immortal Form in gentle bands & tender tears
But all within is open’d into the deeps of Entuthon Benython
A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable, without end.
Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination
(Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus. blessed for ever).
60
And there Jerusalem wanders with Vala upon the mountains,
Attracted by the revolutions of those Wheels the Cloud of smoke
Immense, and Jerusalem & Vala weeping in the Cloud
Wander away into the Chaotic Void, lamenting with her Shadow
Among the Daughters of Albion, among the Starry Wheels;
Lamenting for her children, for the sons & daughters of Albion
Los heard her lamentations in the deeps afar! his tears fall
Incessant before the Furnaces, and his Emanation divided in pain,
Eastward towards the Starry Wheels. But Westward, a black Horror,
PLATE 6
His spectre driv’n by the Starry Wheels of Albions sons, black and
Opake divided from his back; he labours and he mourns!
For as his Emanation divided, his Spectre also divided
In terror of those starry wheels: and the Spectre stood over Los
Howling in pain: a blackning Shadow, blackning dark & opake
Cursing the terrible Los: bitterly cursing him for his friendship
To Albion, suggesting murderous thoughts against Albion.
Los rag’d and stamp’d the earth in his might & terrible wrath!
He stood and stampd the earth! then he threw down his hammer in rage &
10
In fury: then he sat down and wept, terrified! Then arose
And chaunted his song, labouring with the tongs and hammer:
But still the Spectre divided, and still his pain increas’d!
In pain the Spectre divided: in pain of hunger and thirst:
To devour Los’s Human Perfection, but when he saw that Los
PLATE 7
Was living: panting like a frighted wolf, and howling
He stood over the Immortal, in the solitude and darkness:
Upon the darkning Thames, across the whole Island westward,
A horrible Shadow of Death, among the Furnaces: beneath
The pillar of folding smoke; and he sought by other means,
To lure Los: by tears, by arguments of science & by terrors:
Terrors in every Nerve, by spasms & extended pains:
While Los answer’d unterrified to the opake blackening Fiend
And thus the Spectre spoke: Wilt thou still go on to destruction?
10
Till thy life is all taken away by this deceitful Friendship?
He drinks thee up like water! like wine he pours thee
Into his tuns: thy Daughters are trodden in his vintage
He makes thy Sons the trampling of his bulls, they are plow’d
And harrowd for his profit, lo! thy stolen Emanation
Is his garden of pleasure! all the Spectres of his Sons mock thee
Look how they scorn thy once admired palaces! now in ruins
Because of Albion! because of deceit and friendship! For Lo!
Hand has peopled Babel & Nineveh: Hyle, Ashur & Aram:
Cobans son is Nimrod: his son Cush is adjoind to Aram,
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By the Daughter of Babel, in a woven mantle of pestilence & war.
They put forth their spectrous cloudy sails; which drive their immense
Constellations over the deadly deeps of indefinite Udan-Adan[.]
Kox is the Father of Shem & Ham & Japheth, he is the Noah
Of the Flood of Udan-Adan. Hut’n is the Father of the Seven
From Enoch to Adam; Schofield is Adam who was New-
Created in Edom. I saw it indignant, & thou art not moved!
This has divided thee in sunder: and wilt thou still forgive?
O! thou seest not what I see! what is done in the Furnaces.
Listen, I will tell thee what is done in moments to thee unknown:
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Luvah was cast into the Furnaces of affliction and sealed,
And Vala fed in cruel delight, the Furnaces with fire:
Stern Urizen beheld; urgd by necessity to keep
The evil day afar, and if perchance with iron power
He might avert his own despair: in woe & fear he saw
Vala incircle round the Furnaces where Luvah was clos’d;
With joy she heard his howlings, & forgot he was her Luvah,
With whom she liv’d in bliss in times of innocence & youth!
Vala comes from the Furnace in a cloud, but wretched Luvah
Is howling in the Furnaces, in flames among Albions Spectres,
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To prepare the Spectre of Albion to reign over thee O Los,
Forming the Spectres of Albion according to his rage:
To prepare the Spectre of Adam, who is Scofield: the Ninth
Of Albions sons, & the father of all his brethren in the Shadowy
Generation. Cambel & Gwendolen wove webs of war & of
Religion, to involve all Albions sons, and when they had
Involv’d Eight; their webs roll’d outwards into darkness
And Scofield the Ninth remaind on the outside of the Eight
And Kox, Kotope, & Bowen, One in him, a Fourfold Wonder
Involv’d the Eight: Such are the Generations of the Giant Albion,
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To separate a Law of Sin, to punish thee in thy members.
Los answer’d. Altho’ I know not this! I know far worse than this:
