A Dream

Catherine Blake said her only problem with her husband was that he spent too much time in Heaven. In our dreams we may be closer to Blake's Heaven than is possible in our waking hours. Some day we may realize that where we live now is largely vaporous.

The other day I had dinner with Blake, and I asked him if he had said all he had to say by 1828. He said "'pretty much', 'pretty much', especially if you've experienced all the words and pictures that I left behind."

I asked him if there was anything more he would like to tell us now from his present life. He said, "Oh yes, a great deal; but I've experienced nothing that your corporeal mind would find meaningful." he went on to say that where he now lived and what he now knew was separated from me by a great chasm, much like the one between Lazarus in Abraham's bosom and Dives.

He reminded me of Paul's experience in the Third Heaven where "He heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter".

I asked Blake if he had recently come in contact with Isaiah or Ezekiel. He said that Ezekiel and he had become bosom buddies, "we laughed together over the peculiar directive that Ezekiel had received from God". He also told Ezekiel that that affair had meant a lot to him and given him a vivid awareness of the "perception of the infinite" (MHH13, E39)

Blake went on to say that in due course, at the acceptable time, he would be glad to introduce me to Ezekiel or to anyone else I desired to meet. He also arranged a tennis match for me with Kenny Rosewall.

I asked Blake how his Spectre had been most hurtful to him. He promptly replied as follows: in my Revolutionary zeal for Liberty I bad mouthed a fair number of people who seemed to be against it. I've now met these people one by one and come with them to good accord, I include Bacon, Newton, Locke, and a host of others" (It was too many for me to remember, even in that rapturous state.)

I was just about to make further requests when the alarm clock sounded, and I was aroused from my Heavenly Vision or pehaps I went back to the corporeal sleep.