William Blake (1757 – 1827)
English poet, Christian mystic, painter, printmaker, and engraver.
The Old and New Testaments are the great code of art.
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white.
…some say that Happiness is not Good for Mortals & they ought to be answerd that Sorrow is not fit for Immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed.
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs and flaming hair,
But desire gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there.
England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death
And close her from thy ancient walls?
If a thing loves, it is infinite.
Active Evil is better than Passive Good.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's;
I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.
Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.
Forgiveness of enemies can only come upon their repentance.
There is no century in which Blake would not have seen angels.
Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er the joys of night.
Sleep, sleep: in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
The ancient poets animated all 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.
Like a fiend in a cloud,
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;
I turn my back to the east,
From whence comforts have increased;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.
And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.