BLAKE'S INFINITY

Yale Center for British Art

America A Prophecy

Plate 14

In The Blake Dictionary on Page 31 S. Foster Damon states:

"To Blake, the Atlantic Continent symbolized the spiritual and intellectual unity of the two countries [America and the British Isles], but the deluge submerged most of it; indeed the American idea was the logical development of English libertarian thought. These ideas were lofty, therefore the Atlantic Continent is mountainous."

Blake's used the Atlantic Continent as a symbol for qualities of Infinity. Parallel to Eternity as a dimension beyond time, Infinity is a dimension beyond space. It is reached through the 'void outside of existence.'  Imagination can take you there.

In this statement infinite space in which all matter is contained is capable of being small enough  to be held in one's hand. Although infinity has no bounds, to the world of vision it contracts or expands to the perception of the individual.

Auguries of Innocence, (E 490)               

"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"

America, Plate 14, (E 56)

 "Fury! rage! madness! in a wind swept through America             
And the red flames of Orc that folded roaring fierce around
The angry shores, and the fierce rushing of th'inhabitants together:
The citizens of New-York close their books & lock their chests;
The mariners of Boston drop their anchors and unlade;
The scribe of Pensylvania casts his pen upon the earth;          
The builder of Virginia throws his hammer down in fear.

Then had America been lost, o'erwhelm'd by the Atlantic,
And Earth had lost another portion of the infinite,

But all rush together in the night in wrath and raging fire
The red fires rag'd! the plagues recoil'd! then rolld they back with fury"

America was not lost to the Infinite although it was lost to Great Britain. It remained to be seen if Orc - the spirit of revolution - would gain a permanent foot hold for liberty or if America would slide back into the 'mind forged manacles' which prevent the perception of the infinite.   

Blake's Milton

First posted June 2017

In 2011 Larry taught a short enrichment course in Blake at the Senior Learning Institute of the College of Central Florida. He concluded the course with this precis of Blake's Milton.

Wikimedia Commons
British Museum
Milton
Copy A, Plate 1

 

The Mature Works

Milton, Blake's first overtly Christian work, is his testimony of faith. It's also his way of rehabilitating his childhood hero, John Milton. Finally it's a difficult poem; it contains unfathomable depths. This review can do no more than introduce the reader to the poem and call attention to some of the new elements in the mature development of Blake's myth.

Milton is a very autobiographical work. Blake used many of the characters that his readers might be familiar with from earlier works, but in this very personal poem they often assume other (although related) identities. Particularly we understand that Blake was Los, and Hayley was Satan (he had suborned Blake from his true work to hack work: from Eternity to Ulro.)

John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, had been a major force in Blake's life; he had been many things to Blake since his childhood. In Blake's day Milton enjoyed enormous spiritual stature among the English people. Even today the general understanding of Heaven, Hell, God and Satan (among people interested in those concepts) tends to be more often Miltonic than Biblical. All subsequent English poets lived and wrote in Milton's shadow, and the greatest ones aspired to achieve an epic comparable to Paradise Lost. In the first half of his life Blake was very much under the shadow of Milton who was respected as the great epic poet of the English people.

Although Blake had much in common with the puritan poet, he disagreed with Milton about a number of things. For example, as a young man he despised the God of Paradise Lost and admired Milton's Devil. Blake made that clear in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and tried to put Milton in his place by saying that he was of the Devil's party without knowing it. Ten years later the experience of grace empowered Blake to deal with Milton in a better way. He called him back to earth to straighten out his theology, and he identified with him and his spiritual power in a radical way. He recreated Milton as Milton had recreated the Bible.

As Blake's poem begins, Milton has been in Heaven for a hundred years, obedient although not very happy there. The 'Bard's Song' (which takes up the first third of the poem) recreates the war in Heaven of Paradise Lost. The other Eternals find the Bard's song appalling, but Milton embraces the Bard and his song. In a thrilling imaginative triumph he announces his intention of leaving Heaven to complete the work on earth that he had left undone. Although Blake doesn't say this, any Christian should recognize that Milton thus follows in the footsteps of Christ as described in the famous Kenosis passage in Philippians 2: 

Philippians 2
[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
[8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
[9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name

Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)
"He took off the robe of the promise and ungirded himself from the oath of God.
And Milton said: "I go to Eternal Death The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam [king of Troy], in pomp of Warlike Selfhood."

Milton: plate 14 reads
"----contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body From corruptibility?
O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave:
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks:
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death, Lest the Last Judgment come and find me unannihilate
And I be seized and given into the hands of my own Selfhood"

Anyone familiar with the gospel story will see biblical allusions and references here.

In Blake's cottage he sees Milton's shadow, a horrible vision:

Milton Plate 37:
"Miltons Shadow heard & condensing all his Fibres
Into a strength impregnable of majesty & beauty infinite
I saw he was the Covering Cherub & within him Satan
And Rahab, ... in the Selfhood deadly
And he appeard the Wicker Man of Scandinavia in whom
Jerusalems children consume in flames among the Stars
Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God
Reaching from heaven to earth a Cloud & Human Form
I beheld Milton with astonishment & in him beheld
The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark
Twelve monstrous dishumanizd terrors Synagogues of Satan.
...
All these are seen in Miltons Shadow who is the Covering Cherub
The Spectre of Albion"

An attempt to translate this visionary poetry into "common sense" might suggest that in Milton's shadow Blake suddenly became immediately aware of all the fallen nature of the world (and his own mind) that had consumed most of his poetry to that point. Now he became aware of all these things, but in the light of a person now full of light.

Back on earth Milton encounters many of the characters whom we met in The Four Zoas. Tirzah and Rahab tempt him; his contest with Urizen has special interest as a record of the resolution of Blake's life long struggle with the things that Urizen represented to him:

"Silent they met and silent strove among the streams of Arnon 
Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down
And took up water from the river Jordan, pouring on
To Milton's brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.
But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care
Between his palms and filling up the furrows of many years,
Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones
Creating new flesh on the Demon cold and building him
As with new clay, a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor." 

[Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 112)]

A Bible dictionary, or even better, Damon's Blake Dictionary, will help to clarify the associations with biblical locations. Here we see the old Urizen still trying to freeze the poet's brain, but instead he finds himself being humanized by an emissary from Heaven. Blake is vividly depicting the battle between the forces of positivism and spirit.

Milton meets other obstacles and temptations on his journey, a journey that begins to bear increasing resemblance to that of Bunyan's Pilgrim or even of Jesus himself. He unites with Los and with Blake. He finally meets Satan, confronts him and overcomes him as Jesus had done. These dramatic events give Blake ample opportunity to describe in detail the eternal and satanic dimensions of life, the conflict between the two and the inevitable victory of the eternal. For the first and perhaps the only time Blake is writing a traditional morality story.

This material is autobiographical and written in the honeymoon phase of his new spiritual life. Blake's full meanings yield only to intensive study, but from the beginning there are thrilling lines to delight and inspire the reader. In his esoteric language Blake describes for us what has happened to him, and nothing could be more engrossing for the reader interested in the life of the spirit and in Blake. The relationship of this story to the myth described above should be obvious. But Milton is more real than the previous material because Blake has lived it and writes (and sketches) with spiritual senses enlarged and tuned by his recent experience of grace.

 
A digression occurs in the second half of Book One of Milton, a detailed description of the "World of Los"; it contains much of Blake's most delightful poetry. The reader will remember that in 4Z Los had passed through several stages of development. Beginning as the primitive prophetic boy, he became first disciple and later adversary of Urizen. He bound Urizen into fallen forms of life, then 'became what he beheld'. But in Night VII of the Four Zoas we recall that he embraced his Spectre, actually the Urizen within, and thereupon Los became the hero of the epic.

Letters, To Flaxman, (E 707) 
"Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me. terrors appeard in the Heavens above And in Hell beneath & a mighty & awful change threatend the Earth The American War began All its dark horrors passed before my face" 

 Milton, Plate 28, [30], (E 126) 
"But others of the Sons of Los build Moments & Minutes & Hours

And Days & Months & Years & Ages & Periods; wondrous buildings   
And every Moment has a Couch of gold for soft repose,
(A Moment equals a pulsation of the artery),
And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
And every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils.         
And every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill.
And every Day & Night, has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
Shining like precious stones & ornamented with appropriate signs:
And every Month, a silver paved Terrace builded high:
And every Year, invulnerable Barriers with high Towers.    
And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold.
And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.
Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years
Each has its Guard. each Moment Minute Hour Day Month & Year.
All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements             
The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore
Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years.

PLATE 29 [31]
For in this Period the Poets Work is Done: and all the Great
Events of Time start forth & are concievd in such a Period
Within a Moment: a Pulsation of the Artery."

 

FEAST OF THE ETERNALS

 First posted September 2009 

At the conclusion of 4Zs, Blake created this beautiful poetic image of Tharmas and Urthona, body and spirit, Man and God, as they depart the Golden feast. Divisions have been reconciled, unity has been achieved, a new age has begun, rejoicing is underway.

Four Zoas: Night the Ninth, pg 137, (E 405)

"Then Tharmas & Urthona rose from the Golden feast satiated
With Mirth & joy Urthona limping from his fall on Tharmas leand
In his right hand his hammer Tharmas held his Shepherds crook
Beset with gold gold were the ornaments formed by the sons of Urizen
Then Enion & Ahania & Vala & the wife of Dark Urthona
Rose from the feast in joy ascending to their Golden Looms
There the wingd shuttle Sang the spindle & the distaff & the Reel
Rang sweet the praise of industry. Thro all the golden rooms
Heaven rang with winged Exultation All beneath howld loud
With tenfold rout & desolation roard the Chasms beneath
Where the wide woof flowd down & where the Nations are gatherd together"

Since I haven't been able to find an image that represents the Feast of the Eternals, I'll substitute another scene of rejoycing, connecting the lower and higher levels. Note the bread, the wine, the scroll, the compass,the lyre and other of Blake's symbols. 

Wikipedia Commons
Jacob's Ladder
Genesis 28:12 

 Jacob's Ladder

Here is a hymn we used to sing with the Catholic Charismatics at Georgetown University which uses a similar theme and expresses some of the same sentiments: GOD AND MAN AT TABLE ARE SAT DOWN.

God And Man At Table Are Set Down

O, welcome all you noble saints of old,
As now before your very eyes unfold
The wonders all so long ago foretold.
God and man at table are sat down.

Elders, martyrs, all are falling down;
Prophets, patriarchs are gath’ring round,
What angels longed to see now we have found.
God and man at table are sat down.

Beggers, lame, and harlots also here;
Repentant publicans are drawing near;
Wayward ones come home without a fear.
God and man at table are sat down.

When at last this earth shall pass away,
When Jesus and his bride are one to stay,
The feast of love is just begun that day.
God and man at table are sat down.

(Copyright 1972, Dawn Treader Music.)

THE ADOLESCENT

            Fitzwilliam Museum

           Songs of Experience

              Garden of Love

Plate 44, Copy AA

Since adolescence is a period of transition between childhood and adulthood it requires many adjustments and adaptations. Few of us do not experience some trauma as we seek to cast aside values and behaviors which were suitable to the child but would be inappropriate to the mature person. We find our lives disrupted when we lose one set of standards before we find another which is reliable and trustworthy.  

We have been taught to live in certain ways by parents, teachers, and other authorities but must decide on the way that is harmonious with our inmost being if we are to live honestly and with authenticity. Here are some common experiences of adolescence which can be discerned in poems of Blake's Songs of Experience.

1 disillusion

2 realizing the end of childhood

3 facing harsh reality

4 alienation

5 confronting restraints 

6 readjusting value structure 

7 suffering consequences of non-conformity 

8 breaking sexual mores 

9 rejecting societies norms 

Disillusion 

Songs of Experience, Plate 32, (E 20)

"The CLOD & the PEBBLE         

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

     So sang a little Clod of Clay,  
     Trodden with the cattles 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 anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite." 

Realizing the end of childhood 

Songs of Experience, Plate 38, (E 23)

"NURSES Song                          

When the voices of children, are heard on the green
And whisprings 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 & your day, are wasted in play
And your winter and night in disguise.

Facing harsh reality 

Songs of Experience, Plate 40, (E 23)
"THE FLY.                            

Little Fly
Thy summers 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 & sing: 
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life                    
And strength & breath:
And the want                        
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die." 

Alienation  

Songs of Experience, Plate 44, (E 26) 

"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 & desires."

Confronting restraints 

Songs of Experience, Plate 46, (E 26) 
"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 Infants cry of fear,         
In every voice: in every ban,   
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear 

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,     
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse"

Readjusting value structure 

Songs of Experience, Plate 47, (E 27)
"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 Catterpiller 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 thro' Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain"

Suffering consequences of non-conformity 

Songs of Experience, Plate 50, (E 28) 
"A Little BOY Lost                

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 siez'd his hair: 
He led him by his little coat:            
And all admir'd 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 strip'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 Albions shore."    

Breaking sexual mores 

Songs of Experience, Plate 51, (E 29) 
"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 winters 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 removd 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 heavens 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" 

Rejecting societies norms 

Songs of Experience, Plate 55, (E 32) 
"A DIVINE IMAGE

[An early Song of Experience included in one late copy]  

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."  

Fitzwilliam Museum

Songs of Experience

Nurses Song

Plate 38, copy AA

Fitzwilliam Museum

Songs of Experience

Human Abstract

Plate 47, copy AA

THE CHILD

                   Fitzwilliam Museum

                   Songs of Innocence

Plate 9, Copy AA

Two aspects of the child which Blake portrays are the potential of the child and the vulnerability of the child. He shows us the child who merrily requests the songs but whose joy brought tears to his eyes. The contradictory nature of childhood is present from the first of the songs. The same child who delights in the simplest of things - the smile, the touch, the sight, the sound, or the taste, can be devastated by a restraining hand, a critical word, or the admonition 'no'.  

As we read through the song of Innocence we hear of stresses which enter the life of the child. The Little Black Boy feels the alienation of not being accepted by the English child. The Little Boy lost can't keep up with his father and must 'weep' to get his attention. The Little Boy Found requires the intervention of God's guidance to reestablish his connection with his family. In the Divine Image the child learns that Mercy Pity Peace and Love are within him because they are synonymous with the Divine Image - the God within. In Nurse's Song we see children who are beyond the need for external supervision because they are aware of presence of the light and desire to enjoy it least it fade. In Anothers Sorrow the child has reached the maturity of knowing that there is suffering to be borne, but who perceives that there is One who shares the pains of the world.

Songs of Innocence, Plate 4, (E 7)

"Introduction
Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me.

Pipe a song about a Lamb;    
So I piped with merry chear,
Piper pipe that song again--
So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear,        
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear

Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read--
So he vanish'd from my sight.
And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear" 

Songs of Innocence, Plate 9, (E 9)   
"The Little Black Boy.

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say.

Look on the rising sun: there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away.      
And flowers and trees and beasts and men recieve
Comfort in morning joy in the noon day.

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 sun-burnt face      
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
SONGS 10  
For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.

Thus  did my mother say and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy;
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:

Ill shade him from the heat till lie can bear,
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me."

Songs of Innocence, Plate 13, (E 11) 
"The Little Boy lost     

Father, father, where are you going
O do not walk so fast.
Speak father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost,

The night was dark no father was there   
The child was wet with dew,
The mire was deep, & the child did weep
And away the vapour flew."

Songs of Innocence, Plate 14, (E 11)
"The Little Boy Found 

The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wand'ring light,
Began to cry, but God ever nigh,
Appeard like his father in white.

He kissed the child & by the hand led  
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, thro' the lonely dale
Her little boy weeping sought." 

Songs of Innocence, Plate 18, (E 12)
"The Divine Image.             

To Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress:
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,  
Is God our father dear:
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine   
Love Mercy Pity Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,
 
There God is dwelling too"  

Songs of innocence, Plate 24, (E 15) 

"Nurse's Song                      
When the voices of children are heard on the green   
And laughing is heard on the hill,       
My heart is at rest within my breast
And every thing else is still

Then come home my children, the sun is gone down    
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep      
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly     
And the hills are all coverd with sheep

Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd  
And all the hills ecchoed"
 
Songs of Innocence, Plate 27, (E 17)   
"On Anothers Sorrow   

Can I see anothers woe,
And not be in sorrow too.
Can I see anothers grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrows share,
Can a father see his child,
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd.

Can a mother sit and hear,
An infant groan an infant fear--
No no never can it be.
Never never can it be.

And can he who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small birds grief & care
Hear the woes that infants bear--

And not sit beside the nest
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near
Weeping tear on infants tear. 

And not sit both night & day,
Wiping all our tears away.
O! no never can it be.
Never never can it be.

He doth give his joy to all. 
He becomes an infant small.
He becomes a man of woe
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not, thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy maker is not by.
Think not, thou canst weep a tear,
And thy maker is not near.

O! he gives to us his joy,
That our grief he may destroy
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan"

Fitzwilliam Museum
        Songs of Innocence
Plate 24, Copy AA

  
Fitzwilliam Museum
       Songs of Innocence
Plate 14, Copy AA

SANITY

Wikipedia Commons

Frontispiece

Songs of Experience

Here is a section of An Interview Conducted with Kathleen Raine on July 12, 1993 by Donald E. Stanford:

interview 

"Stanford: One critic has said recently that Blake was not mad, but he understood and described the mental suffering of madness in a profound way. Do concepts of madness such as schizophrenia, hallucination, and so on have a useful place in Blake criticism and will you comment on the direct question, “was Blake mad?”

 

Raine: No, of course he wasn’t mad. He was a sane man in a mad world, roughly speaking. Great genius has a wider field of consciousness. That is what genius is: seeing rather more than other men do, perhaps being in advance of his time. Certainly the nature of genius is to not accept current opinion, and Blake certainly did not accept current opinion. I don’t think that words like “schizophrenia” and “paranoia” add much to human discussion of whatever these words mean. Blake himself says, “Plato says that poets do not know what they write and utter. In that case, why is a lesser kind to be called knowing?” In other words, a poet is an inspired man. Blake believed in inspiration. This must be especially remembered with Blake, but all poets have believed in inspiration, that in an inspired state there is a widening of the field of consciousness. Yeats describes genius as bringing together at certain moments the waking and the sleeping mind. The available knowledge is greater in states of inspiration. Blake certainly had this. 

 

There is much suffering, as your critic says, in the writings of Blake: the turmoil, the anguish of Jerusalem. But this was not a personal thing; he was talking about the nation. He was a spiritual patriot, and he was speaking of the suffering of the giant Albion, as he calls the English nation. He was a prophet in the sense of the Old Testament prophets in the Jewish Bible, who also were speaking for their nation. They were not speaking of their individual suffering; they were speaking of the national psyche, if you like, into which Blake had certainly a remarkably clear insight. He speaks of living. He says, 'in South Molton Street I see and hear' what is going on in the soul of Albion, which is, of course, the soul of England. In other words, here in South Moulton Street I both see and hear the sufferings of the military, or the war against France that broke out after the French Revolution, of the conscription of soldiers, and the suffering of child labor, the endless sufferings of his people at that time, the hangings of boys at Tyburn for the theft of a yard of cloth, the injustices, the national crimes against which Blake spoke out. You may say these were descriptions of deep, deep suffering, the psychological sufferings of various kinds of mental and physical and spiritual tyrannies in his nation at the time. I wonder what he would have been writing about had he lived now. Certainly many things would have been the same — perhaps not all — but when he writes of London and marking, 'in every face marks of weakness, marks of woe,' he felt the collective suffering: that was the nature of his inspiration. He was not a personal poet expressing himself. He was a national prophet, calling to his nation to awake from their 'deadly sleep,' which is unconsciousness of what is going on, and to awake to the truths of the imagination and to reform many things. This is not madness."

Laocoon, (E 274)

 "There are States in which all Visionary Men are accounted Mad 
   Men   such are Greece & Rome"

 Poetical Sketches, (E 415)

"   MAD SONG.
The wild winds weep,
  And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
  And my griefs infold:   
But lo! the morning peeps          
  Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn 
The earth do scorn.

Lo! to the vault
  Of paved heaven,              
With sorrow fraught
  My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
  Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,      
  And with tempests play.

Like a fiend in a cloud
  With howling woe,
After night I do croud,
  And with night will go;         
I turn my back to the east,

From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain."

Annotations to Spurzheim's Observations on Insanity, (E 663) 

 "Cowper came to me & said. O that I
were insane always I will never rest.  Can you not make me truly
insane.  I will never rest till I am so. O that in the bosom of
God I was hid.  You retain health & yet are as mad as any of us
all--over us all--mad as a refuge from unbelief--from Bacon
Newton & Locke"

Letters, to Butts Jany 10 180(3), (E 724) 

"The Thing I
have most at Heart! more than life or all that seems to make life
comfortable without.  Is the Interest of True Religion & Science
& whenever any thing appears to affect that Interest. (Especially
if I myself omit any duty to my [self] <Station> as a
Soldier of Christ) It gives me the greatest of torments, I am not
ashamed afraid or averse to tell You what Ought to be Told.  That
I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven Daily &
Nightly but the nature of such things is not as some suppose.
without trouble or care.  Temptations are on the right hand &
left behind the sea of time & space roars & follows swiftly he
who keeps not right onward is lost & if our footsteps slide in
clay how can we do otherwise than fear & tremble. but I should
not have troubled You with this account of my spiritual state
unless it had been necessary in explaining the actual cause of my
uneasiness into which you are so kind as to Enquire for I never
obtrude such things on others unless questiond & then I never
disguise the truth--But if we fear to do the dictates of our
Angels & tremble at the Tasks set before us. if we refuse to do
Spiritual Acts. because of Natural Fears or Natural Desires!  Who
can describe the dismal torments of such a state!--I too well
remember the Threats I heard!--If you who are organized by Divine
Providence for Spiritual communion.  Refuse & bury your Talent in
the Earth even tho you should want Natural Bread. Sorrow & Desperation 
pursues you thro life! & after death shame & confusion of face to
eternity--Every one in Eternity will leave you aghast at the Man
who was crownd with glory & honour by his brethren & betrayd
their cause to their enemies.  You will be calld the base Judas
who betrayd his Friend!--Such words would make any Stout man
tremble & how then could I be at ease? But I am now no longer in
That State & now go on again with my Task Fearless. and tho my
path is difficult.  I have no fear of stumbling while I keep it" 

Letters, April 25: 1803, To Butts, (E 728)

"Now I may say to you what perhaps I should not dare to say
to any one else.  That I can alone carry on my visionary studies
in London unannoyd & that I may converse with my friends in
Eternity.  See Visions, Dream Dreams, & prophecy & speak Parables
unobserv'd & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals. perhaps
Doubts proceeding from Kindness. but Doubts are always pernicious
Especially when we Doubt our Friends Christ is very decided on
this Point.  'He who is Not With Me is Against Me' There is no
Medium or Middle state & if a Man is the Enemy of my Spiritual
Life while he pretends to be the Friend of my Corporeal. he is a
Real Enemy--but the Man may be the friend of my Spiritual Life
while he seems the Enemy of my Corporeal but Not Vice Versa" 

SEEING

British Museum

Illustrations for Young's Night Thoughts

 

We hear what we want to hear or what we are capable of hearing. Blake teaches that we are capable of seeing more, hearing more, understanding more; that we have closed ourselves in a cavern of our minds and look out through narrow chinks.  

We see in the picture a man whose eyes are closed, whose ears are stopped, whose face shows anxiety, whose head is turned away. He shows no desire to open himself to becoming aware of the possibility of expanding his physical or spiritual senses to a wider and deeper experience. Blake proclaims that there are gates through which man may pass if he is able to discern them and realizes the benefits of developing the potentials which are within him. He tells us that we all partake of the "faculty of vision" but lose it if we fail to cultivate it.

---

Henry Crabb Robinson, Reminiscences, Page 24 

"Dined with Aders. A very remarkable and interesting evening. The party at dinner Blake the painter, and Linnell, also a painter. In the evening, Miss Denman and Miss Flaxman came.

Shall I call Blake artist, genius, mystic, or madman? Probably he is all. I will put down without method what I can recollect of the conversation of this remarkable man.

He has a most interesting appearance. He is now old (sixty -eight), pale, with a Socratic countenance and an expression of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it except when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration. The conversation turned on art, poetry, and religion. He brought with him an engraving of his "Canterbury Pilgrims." One of the figures in it is like a figure in a picture belonging to Mr. Aders. “They say I stole it from this picture,” said Blake, "but I did it twenty years before I knew of this picture. However, in my youth, I was always studying paintings of this kind. No wonder there is a resemblance.” In this he seemed to explain humanly what he had done. But at another time he spoke of his paintings as being what he had seen in his visions. And when he said “my visions,” it was in the ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of every-day matters. In the same tone he said repeatedly, "The Spirit told me.” I took occasion to say: “ You express yourself as Socrates used to do. What resemblance do you suppose there is between your spirit and his?”, “ The same as between our countenances." He paused and added, "I was Socrates”; and then, as if correcting himself, said, “a sort  of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.” I suggested, on philosophical grounds, the impossibility of supposing an immortal being created, an eternity à parte post without an eternity à parte ante. His eye brightened at this, and he fully concurred with me. “To be sure, it is impossible. We are all coexistent with God, members of the Divine body. We are all partakers of the Divine nature.” In this, by the by, Blake has but adopted an ancient Greek idea. As connected with this idea, I will mention here, though it formed part of our talk as we were walking homeward, that on my asking in what light he viewed the great question concerning the deity of Jesus Christ, he said : “He is the only God". But then, he added, “and so am I, and so are you." He had just before (and that occasioned my question ) been speaking of the errors of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ should not have allowed himself to be crucified, and should not have attacked the government. On my inquiring how this view could be reconciled with the sanctity and Divine qualities of Jesus, Blake said: “He was not then become the Father.” Connecting, as well as one can, these fragmentary sentiments, it would be hard to fix Blake's station between Christianity, Platonism, and Spinozism . Yet he professes to be very hostile to Plato , and reproaches Wordsworth with being not a Christian, but a Platonist.  

...

Page 29-30 

His faculty of vision, he says, he has had from early infancy. He thinks all men partake of it, but it is lost for want of being cultivated. He eagerly assented to a remark I made, that all men have all faculties in a greater or less degree."

---

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39) 

 "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear  to man as it is: infinite.
   For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern."

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, (E 2)

 "Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. he
percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover. 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 12, (E 38)
                    "A Memorable Fancy.                            
   The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked
them how they dared so roundly to assert. that God spake to them; 
and  whether they did not think at the time, that they would be 
misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
   Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite
organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in
every thing, and as  I was then perswaded. & remain confirm'd;
that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared
not for consequences but  wrote.
   Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?
   He replied.  All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination
this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable
of a firm perswasion of any thing."

Jerusalem, Plate 30 [34], (E 177) 

"If Perceptive Organs vary: Objects of Perception seem to vary:  
If the Perceptive Organs close: their Objects seem to close also:" 

Jerusalem, Plate 49, (E 198) 

"In one night the Atlantic Continent was caught up with the Moon,
And became an Opake Globe far distant clad with moony beams.     
The Visions of Eternity, by reason of narrowed perceptions,
Are become weak Visions of Time & Space, fix'd into furrows of death;
Till deep dissimulation is the only defence an honest man has left
O Polypus of Death O Spectre over Europe and Asia
Withering the Human Form by Laws of Sacrifice for Sin            
By Laws of Chastity & Abhorrence I am witherd up.
Striving to Create a Heaven in which all shall be pure & holy
In their Own Selfhoods, in Natural Selfish Chastity to banish Pity
And dear Mutual Forgiveness; & to become One Great Satan
Inslavd to the most powerful Selfhood: to murder the Divine Humanity    
In whose sight all are as the dust & who chargeth his Angels with folly!
Ah! weak & wide astray! Ah shut in narrow doleful form!
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground!
The Eye of Man, a little narrow orb, closd up & dark,
Scarcely beholding the Great Light; conversing with the [Void]:
The Ear, a little shell, in small volutions shutting out
True Harmonies, & comprehending great, as very small:
The Nostrils, bent down to the earth & clos'd with senseless flesh.
That odours cannot them expand, nor joy on them exult:
The Tongue, a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys,     
A little sound it utters, & its cries are faintly heard," 

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 544)

"Tell me the Acts, O
historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away
with your reasoning and your rubbish.  All that is not action is
not [P 45] worth reading.  Tell me the What; I do not want you to
tell me the Why, and the How; I can find that out myself, as well
as you can, and I will not be fooled by you into opinions, that
you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable or
impossible.  His opinions, who does not see spiritual agency, is
not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because it is
improbable, must reject all History and retain doubts only." 

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 67, (E 369) 

"Los trembling answerd Now I feel the weight of stern repentance
Tremble not so my Enitharmon at the awful gates    
Of thy poor broken Heart I see thee like a shadow withering
As on the outside of Existence but look! behold! take comfort!
Turn inwardly thine Eyes & there behold the Lamb of God
Clothed in Luvahs robes of blood descending to redeem
O Spectre of Urthona take comfort O Enitharmon   
Couldst thou but cease from terror & trembling & affright
When I appear before thee in forgiveness of ancient injuries 
Why shouldst thou remember & be afraid. I surely have died in pain
Often enough to convince thy jealousy & fear & terror
Come hither be patient let us converse together because  
I also tremble at myself & at all my former life" 

---

Little Drummer Boy - "Do you know what I know?"

 

SUFFERING

Small Book of Designs

from Book of Urizen, Plate 11

Object 19

"I sought Pleasure and found Pain/Unutterable"

In his conversations with Crabb Robinson, Blake revealed more of himself than was stated in his poetry or in his visual images. He tried to express himself in language that Robinson could understand but it was usually a losing battle. Fortunately Robinson attempted to record Blake's words although the meaning was often opaque to him.

Blake did not want to do what he accused Swedenborg of doing in the first sentence of this quote, but it was difficult to reach a man who depended upon his reasoning function to understand spiritual realities. Blake was concerned that Wordsworth sought God through Natural Religion which makes the error of seeking God through sense and reason excluding love and imagination as essential to the consciousness of the presence. Perhaps Blake saw the passage from "The Excursion" as showing these two deficits in Wordsworth's ability to perceive the infinite, eternal realities. 

Blake pointed out to Robinson examples of men who comprehended a higher truth: Boehme, Law, Michael Angelo. By shifting to a recognition of the role of suffering along the journey to the consciousness of being in the presence of God, Blake went a step further than Robinson was prepared to take.  

Henry Crabb Robinson, Reminiscences, Page 27  

"Yet Swedenborg was wrong in endeavoring to explain to the rational faculty what the reason cannot comprehend. He should have left that." Blake, as I have said, thinks Wordsworth no Christian, but a Platonist. He asked me whether Wordsworth believed in the Scriptures. On my replying in the affirmative, he said he had been much pained by reading the Introduction to “ The Excursion .” It brought on a fit of illness. The passage was produced and read :  

" Jehovah, with his thunder and the choir
Or shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones,
I pass them unalarmed .”

This “pass them unalarmed” greatly offended  Blake. Does Mr. Wordsworth think his mind can surpass Jehovah? I tried to explain this passage in a sense in harmony with Blake's  own theories, but failed, and Wordsworth was finally set down as a Pagan; but still with high praise, as the greatest poet of the age. Jacob Boehme was spoken of as a divinely inspired man. Blake praised, too, the figures in Law's translation as being very beautiful. Michael Angelo could not have done better. Though he spoke of his happiness, he also alluded to past sufferings, and to suffering as necessary. There is suffering in heaven, for where there is the capacity of enjoyment, there is also the capacity of pain."

---

Auguries of Innocence, (E 491)

"It is right it should be so 
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine 
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands"

Songs and Ballads, (E 472)
[How to know Love from Deceit]        

"Love to faults is always blind
Always is to joy inclind                             
Lawless wingd & unconfind             
And breaks all chains from every mind

Deceit to secresy confind             
Lawful cautious & refind              
To every thing but interest blind     
And forges fetters for the mind"       

Songs and Ballads,(E 481)

"I rose up at the dawn of day
Get thee away get thee away
Prayst thou for Riches away away
This is the Throne of Mammon grey

Said I this sure is very odd                                     
I took it to be the Throne of God
For every Thing besides I have
It is only for Riches that I can crave

I have Mental Joy & Mental Health
And Mental Friends & Mental wealth   
Ive a Wife I love & that loves me
Ive all But Riches Bodily
                
I am in Gods presence night & day    
And he never turns his face away
The accuser of sins by my side does stand                      
And he holds my money bag in his hand

For my worldly things God makes him pay            
And hed pay for more if to him I would pray
And so you may do the worst you can do
Be assurd Mr Devil I wont pray to you                         
                
Then If for Riches I must not Pray
God knows I little of Prayers need say
So as a Church is known by its Steeple             
If I pray it must be for other People                

He says if I do not worship him for a God                     
I shall eat coarser food & go worse shod
So as I dont value such things as these
You must do Mr Devil just as God please"

Milton, Plate 33 [36], (E 132)
"And the Divine Voice was heard in the Songs of Beulah Saying     

When I first Married you, I gave you all my whole Soul
I thought that you would love my loves & joy in my delights
Seeking for pleasures in my pleasures O Daughter of Babylon
Then thou wast lovely, mild & gentle. now thou art terrible      
In jealousy & unlovely in my sight, because thou hast cruelly
Cut off my loves in fury till I have no love left for thee
Thy love depends on him thou lovest & on his dear loves
Depend thy pleasures which thou hast cut off by jealousy
Therefore I shew my jealousy  & set  before you Death.     
Behold Milton descended to Redeem the Female Shade

From Death Eternal; such your lot, to be continually Redeem'd
By death & misery of those you love & by Annihilation"