The Portable William Blake

by Blake, William

  “Here,” said I, “is your lot, in this space—if space it may be call’d.” Soon we saw the stable and the church, & I took him to the altar and open’d the Bible, and lol it was a deep pit, into which I descended, driving the Angel before me; soon we saw seven houses of brick; one we enter’d; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons, & all of that species, chain’d by the middle, grinning and snatching at one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains: however, I saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect, first coupled with, & then devour’d, by plucking off first one limb and then another, till the body was left a helpless trunk; this, after grinning & kissing it with seeming fondness, they devour’d too; and here & there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off his own tail; as the stench terribly annoy’d us both, we went into the mill, & I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle’s Analytics.

  So the Angel said: “thy phantasy has imposed upon me, & thou oughtest to be ashamed.”

  I answer’d: “we impose on one another, & it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.”

  Opposition is true Friendship.

  I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.

  Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new: tho’ it is only the Contents or Index of already publish’d books.

  A man carried a monkey about for a shew, & because he was a little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev’d himself as much wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg: he shews the folly of churches, & exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are religious, & himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net.

  Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods.

  And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he was incapable thro’ his conceited notions.

  Thus Swedenborg’s writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime —but no further.

  Have now another plain fact. Any man of mechanical talents may, from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg’s, and from those of Dante or Shake-spear an infinite number.

  But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.

  A MEMORABLE FANCY

  Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose before an Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil utter’d these words:

  “The worship of God is: Honouring his gifts in other men, each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best: those who envy or calumniate great men hate God; for there is no other God.”

  The Angel hearing this became almost blue; but mastering himself he grew yellow, & at last white, pink, & smiling, and then replied:

  “Thou Idolater! is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of ten commandments? and are not all other men fools, sinners, & nothings?”

  The Devil answer’d: “Bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath and so mock the sabbath’s God? murder those who were murder’d because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? covet when he pray’d for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments. Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.”

  When he had so spoken, I beheld the Angel, who stretched out his arms, embracing the flame of fire, & he was consumed and arose as Elijah.

  NOTE: This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular friend; we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense, which the world shall have if they behave well.

  I have also The Bible of Hell, which the world shall have whether they will or no.

  One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression.

  A SONG OF LIBERTY

  1. The Eternal Female groan‘d! it was heard over all the Earth.

  2. Albion’s coast is sick, silent; the American meadows faint!

  3. Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers, and mutter across the ocean: France, rend down thy dungeon!

  4. Golden Spain, burst the barriers of old Rome!

  5. Cast thy keys, O Rome, into the deep down falling, even to eternity down falling,

  6. And weep.

  7. In her trembling hand she took the new born terror, howling.

  8. On those infinite mountains of light, now barr’d out by the atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the starry king !

  9. Flag’d with grey brow’d snows and thunderous visages, the jealous wings wav’d over the deep.

  10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was the shield; forth went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and hurl’d the new born wonder thro’ the starry night.

  11. The fire, the fire is falling!

  12. Look up! look up! 0 citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance! O Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and wine. O African! black African! (go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)

  13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into the western sea.

  14. Wak’d from his eternal sleep, the hoary element roaring fled away.

  15. Down rush’d, beating his wings in vain, the jealous king; his grey brow’d councellors, thunderous warriors, curl’d veterans, among helms, and shields, and chariots, horses, elephants, banners, castles, slings, and rocks.

  16. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona’s dens;

  17. All night beneath the ruins; then, their sullen flames faded, emerge round the gloomy king.

  18. With thunder and fire, leading his starry hosts thro’ the waste wilderness, he promulgates his ten commands, glancing his beamy eyelids over the deep in dark dismay,

  19. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the morning plumes her golden breast,

  20. Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night, crying:

  EMPIRE IS NO MORE! AND NOW THE LION & WOLF SHALL CEASE

  CHORUS

  Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn no longer, in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren—whom, tyrant, he calls free—lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity that wishes but acts notl

  For every thing that lives is Holy.

  FOR THE SEXES: THE GATES OF PARADISE

  (1793-1818)

  FRONTISPIECE

  WHAT IS MAN?

  The Sun’s Light when he unfolds it

  Depends on the Organ that beholds it.

  [PROLOGUE]

  Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice,

  Such are the Gates of Paradise.

  Against the Accuser’s chief desire,

  Who walk’d among the Stones of Fire,

  Jehovah’s Finger Wrote the Law:

  Then Wept! then rose in Zeal & Awe,

  And the Dead Corpse from Sinai’s heat

  Buried beneath his Mercy Seat.

  O Christians, Christians! tell me Why

  You rear it on your Altars high.

  I found him beneath a Tree.

  WATER

  Thou Waterest him with Tears:

  EARTH

  He struggles into Life />
  AIR

  On Cloudy Doubts & Reasoning Cares

  FIRE

  That end in endless Strife.

  At length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell.

  What are these? ALAS! the Female Martyr, Is She also the Divine Image?

  MY SON! MY SON!

  I WANT! I WANT!

  HELP! HELP!

  AGED IGNORANCE Perceptive Organs closed, their Objects close.

  Does thy God, O Priest, take such vengeance as this?

  Fear & Hope are—Vision.

  The Traveller hasteth in the Evening.

  DEATH’S DOOR

  I have said to the Worm:

  Thou art my Mother & my sister.

  THE KEYS

  The Catterpiller on the Leaf

  Reminds thee of thy Mother’s Grief.

  OF THE GATES

  1 My Eternal Man set in Repose,

  The Female from his darkness rose

  And she found me beneath a Tree,

  A Mandrake, & in her Veil hid me.

  Serpent Reasonings us entice

  Of Good & Evil, Virtue & Vice.

  2 Doubt Self Jealous, Wat’ry folly,

  3 Struggling thro’ Earth’s Melancholy.

  4 Naked in Air, in Shame & Fear,

  5 Blind in Fire with shield & spear,

  Two Horn’d Reasoning, Cloven Fiction,

  In Doubt, which is Self contradiction,

  A dark Hermaphrodite We stood,

  Rational Truth, Root of Evil & Good.

  Round me flew the Flaming Sword;

  Round her snowy Whirlwinds roar’d,

  Freezing her Veil, the Mundane Shell.

  61 rent the Veil where the Dead dwell:

  When weary Man enters his Cave

  He meets his Saviour in the Grave.

  Some find a Female Garment there,

  And some a Male, woven with care,

  Lest the Sexual Garments sweet

  Should grow a devouring Winding sheet.

  7 One Dies! Alas! the Living & Dead,

  One is slain & One is fled.

  8 In Vain-glory hatcht & nurst,

  By double Spectres Self Accurst,

  My Son! my Son! thou treatest me

  But as I have instructed thee.

  9 On the shadows of the Moon

  Climbing thro’ Night’s highest noon.

  10 In Time’s Ocean falling drown’d.

  In Aged Ignorance profound,

  11 Holy & cold, I clip’d the Wings

  Of all Sublunary Things,

  12 And in depths of my Dungeons

  Closed the Father & the Sons.

  13 But when once I did descry

  The Immortal Man that cannot Die,

  14 Thro’ evening shades I haste away

  To close the Labours of my Day.

  15 The Door of Death I open found

  And the Worm Weaving in the Ground:

  16 Thou’rt my Mother from the Womb,

  Wife, Sister, Daughter, to the Tomb,

  Weaving to Dreams the Sexual strife

  And weeping over the Web of Life.

  TO THE ACCUSER WHO IS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD

  Truly, My Satan, thou art but a Dunce,

  And dost not know the Garment from the Man.

  Every Harlot was a Virgin once,

  Nor can’st thou ever change Kate into Nan.

  Tho’ thou art Worship’d by the Names Divine

  Of Jesus & Jehovah, thou art still

  The Son of Mom in weary Night’s decline,

  The lost Traveller’s Dream under the Hill.

  THE BOOK OF THEL

  (1789)

  THEL’S MOTTO

  Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

  Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?

  Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

  Or Love in a golden bowl?

  I

  The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,

  All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,

  To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:

  Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard,

  And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew:

  “O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water,

  Why fade these children of the spring, born but to smile & fall?

  Ah! Thel is like a wat’ry bow, and like a parting cloud;

  Like a reflection in a glass; like shadows in the water;

  Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infant’s face;

  Like the dove’s voice; like transient day; like music in the air.

  Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head,

  And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice

  Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time.”

  The Lilly of the valley, breathing in the humble grass,

  Answer’d the lovely maid and said: “I am a wat’ry weed,

  And I am very small and love to dwell in lowly vales;

  So weak, the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head.

  Yet I am visited from heaven, and he that smiles on all

  Walks in the valley and each mom over me spreads his hand,

  Saying, ‘Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-born lilly flower,

  Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks;

  For thou shalt be clothed in light, and fed with morning manna,

  Till summer’s heat melts thee beside the fountains and the springs

  To flourish in eternal vales.’ Then why should Thel complain?

  Why should the mistress of the vales of Har utter a sigh? ”

  She ceas’d & smil’d in tears, then sat down in her silver shrine.

  Thel answer’d: “0 thou little virgin of the peaceful valley,

  Giving to those that cannot crave, the voiceless, the o’ertired ;

  Thy breath doth nourish the innocent lamb, he smells thy milky garments,

  He crops thy flowers while thou sittest smiling in his face,

  Wiping his mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints.

  Thy wine doth purify the golden honey; thy perfume,

  Which thou dost scatter on every little blade of grass that springs,

  Revives the milked cow, & tames the fire-breathing steed.

  But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun:

  I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place?”

  “Queen of the vales,” the Lilly answer’d, “ask the tender cloud,

  And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky,

  And why it scatters its bright beauty thro’ the humid air.

  Descend, O little Cloud, & hover before the eyes of Thel.”

  The Cloud descended, and the Lilly bow’d her modest head

  And went to mind her numerous charge among the verdant grass.

  II

  “O little Cloud,” the virgin said, “I charge thee tell to me

  Why thou complainest not when in one hour thou fade away:

  Then we shall seek thee, but not find. Ah! Thel is like to thee:

  I pass away: yet I complain, and no one hears my voice.”

  The Cloud then shew’d his golden head & his bright form emerg’d,

  Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel.

  “O virgin, know’st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs

  Where Luvah doth renew his horses? Look’st thou on my youth,

  And fearest thou, because I vanish and am seen no more,

  Nothing remains? O maid, I tell thee, when I pass away

  It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace and raptures holy:

  Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers,

  And court the fair-eyed dew to take me to her shining tent:

  The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen sun,

&n
bsp; Till we arise link’d in a golden band and never part,

  But walk united, bearing food to all our tender flowers.”

  “Dost thou, 0 little Cloud? I fear that I am not like thee,

  For I walk thro’ the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers,

  But I feed not the little flowers; I hear the warbling birds,

  But I feed not the warbling birds; they fly and seek their food:

  But Thel delights in these no more, because I fade away;

  And all shall say, ‘Without a use this shining woman liv’d,

  Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?’ ”

  The Cloud reclin’d upon his airy throne and answer’d thus:

  “Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,

  How great thy use, how great thy blessing! Every thing that lives

  Lives not alone nor for itself. Fear not, and I will call

  The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.

  Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.”