The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887)/Songs of Experience
SONGS OF EXPERIENCE.
[1794.]
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EAR the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk'd among the ancient trees.
Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!
O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn;
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.
Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The watery shore,
Is given thee till the break of day.
EARTH'S ANSWER.
EARTH raised up her head
From the darkness dread and drear.
Her light fled,
Stony dread!
And her locks cover'd with grey despair.
Prison'd on watery shore,
Starry Jealousy does keep my den:
Cold and hoar,
Weeping o'er,
I hear the father of the ancient men.
Selfish father of men,
Cruel, jealous, selfish fear,
Can delight,
Chained in night,
The virgins of youth and morning bear?
Does spring hide its joy
When buds and blossoms grow?
Does the sower
Sow by night,
Or the ploughman in darkness plough?
Break this heavy chain
That does freeze my bones around.
Selfish! vain!
Eternal bane!
MY mother groan'd, my father wept,
Into the dangerous world I leapt;
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling-bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast.
A FLOWER was offer'd to me,
Such a flower as May never bore;
But I said, I've a pretty rose-tree,
And I pass'd the sweet flower o'er.
Then I went to my pretty rose-tree,
To tend her by day and by night;
But my rose turn'd away with jealousy,
And her thorns were my only delight.
AH, Sunflower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime,
Where the traveller's journey is done;
Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire
Where my sunflower wishes to go.
THE modest rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threatening horn;
While the lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
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.
WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green,
And whisperings are in the dale,
The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,
My face turns green and pale.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Your spring and your day are wasted in play
And your winter and night in disguise.
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair.
So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
I WENT to the garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chape! 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 tombstones where flowers should be:
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Thy summer's 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, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live
Or if I die.
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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 stripp'd him to his little shirt
And bound him in an iron chain;
And burn'd him in a holy place
Where many had been burn'd before:
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such things done on Albion's shore?
IS this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appal.
THE ANGEL.
I DREAMT a dream! what can it mean?
And that I was a maiden queen,
Guarded by an angel mild:
Witless woe was ne'er beguiled.
And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away,
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart's delight.
So he took his wings and fled;
Then the morn blush'd rosy red;
I dried my tears and arm'd my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.
Soon my angel came again:
I was arm'd, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.
THE LITTLE GIRL LOST.
IN futurity
I prophetic see
That the earth from sleep
(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise and seek
For her maker meek;
And the desert wild
Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime,
Where the summer's prime
Never fades away,
Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told;
She had wander'd long
Hearing wild birds' song.
Sweet sleep, come to me
Underneath this tree.
Do father, mother weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?
Lost in desert wild
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep?
If her heart does ache,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.
Frowning, frowning night,
O'er this desert bright,
Let thy moon arise
While I close my eyes.
Sleeping Lyca lay:
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
View'd the maid asleep.
The kingly lion stood,
And the virgin view'd,
Then he gamboll'd round
O'er the hallow'd ground.
Leopards, tigers play
Round her as she lay,
While the lion old
Bow'd his mane of gold,
And her bosom lick,
And upon her neck
From his eyes of flame
Ruby tears there came.
While the lioness
Loosed her slender dress,
And naked they convey'd
To caves the sleeping maid.
THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND.
ALL the night in woe
Lyca's parents go
Over valleys deep,
While the deserts weep.
Tired and woe-begone,
Hoarse with making moan,
Arm in arm seven days
They traced the desert ways.
Seven nights they sleep
Among shadows deep,
And dream they see their child
Starved in desert wild.
Pale, through pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famish'd, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.
Rising from unrest
The trembling woman press'd
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 tigers wild.
To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell;
Nor fear the wolvish howl,
Nor the lion's growl.
LONDON.
I WANDER thro' each charter'd street
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals;
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.
TO TIRZAH.
WHATE'ER is born of mortal birth
Must be consumed with the earth,
To rise from generation free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The sexes sprung from shame and pride
Blow'd in the morn; in evening died.
But mercy changed death into sleep:
The sexes rose to work and weep.
Thou mother of my mortal part
With cruelty didst mould my heart,
And with false, self-deceiving tears
Didst bind my nostrils, eyes and ears;
Didst close my tongue in senseless clay
And me to mortal life betray:
The death of Jesus set me free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
IT IS RAISED A SPIRITUAL BODY.
THE HUMAN ABSTRACT.
PITY would be no more
If we did not make somebody poor;
And mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.
And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase;
Then cruelty knits a snare
And spreads his baits with care.
He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears;
Then humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.
Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of mystery over his head;
And the caterpillar and fly
Feed on the mystery.
And it bears the fruit of deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.
The gods of the earth and sea
Sought through Nature to find this tree;
But their search was all in vain.
There grows one in the human brain.
THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER.
A LITTLE black thing among the snow,
Crying, "'weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe.
Where are thy father and mother, say?
—They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death.
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
And because I am happy, and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King
Who make up a heaven of our misery.
A 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 and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with 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.
A LITTLE GIRL LOST.
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,
Fill'd with softest care,
Met in garden bright,
Where the holy light
Had just removed the curtains of the night.
There 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!
O the trembling fear,
O the dismal care
That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!
A DIVINE IMAGE.
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.
THE LITTLE VAGABOND.
DEAR mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used 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 livelong day:
Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.
Then the parson might preach and drink and 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 and give him both drink and apparel.
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