Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Mind-Forg'd.

Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794

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 

William Blake

Dare.

The MENTAL TRAVELLER

I travelled through a land of men,

A land of men and women too,

And heard and saw such dreadful things

As cold earth wanderers never knew.

For there the babe is born in joy

That was begotten in dire woe,

Just as we reap in joy the fruit

Which we in bitter tears did sow;

And if the babe is born a boy

He’s given to a woman old,

Who nails him down upon a rock,

Catches his shrieks in cups of gold.

She binds iron thorns around his head,

And pierces both his hands and feet,

And cuts his heart out of his side

To make it feel both cold & heat.

Her fingers number every nerve

Just as a miser counts his gold;

She lives upon his shrieks and cries—

And she grows young as he grows old,

Till he becomes a bleeding youth

And she becomes a virgin bright;

Then he rends up his manacles

And pins her down for his delight.

He plants himself in all her nerves

Just as a husbandman his mould,

And she bcomes his dwelling-place

And garden, frutiful seventyfold.

An aged shadow soon he fades,

Wandering round and earthly cot,

Full filled all with gems and gold

Which he by industry had got.

And these are the gems of the human soul:

The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye,

The countless gold of an aching heart,

The martyr’s groan, and the lover’s sigh.

They are his meat, they are his drink:

He feeds the beggar and the poor

And the wayfaring traveller;

For ever open is his door.

His grief is their eternal joy,

They make the roofs and walls to ring—

Till from the fire on the hearth

Alittle female babe does spring!

And she is all of solid fire

And gems and gold, that none his hand

Dares stretch to touch her baby form,

Or wrap her in his swaddling-band.

But she comes to the man she loves,

If young or old, or rich or poor;

They soon drive out the aged host,

A beggar at another’s door.

He wanders weeping far away

Until some other take him in;

Oft blind and age-bent, sore distressed,

Until he can a maiden win.

And to allay his freezing age

The poor man takes her in his arms:

The cottage fades before his sight,

The garden and its lovely charms;

The guests are scattered through the land

(For the eye altering, alters all);

The senses roll themselves in fear,

And the flat earth becomes a ball,

The stars, sun, moon, all shrink away—

A desert vast without a bound,

And nothing left to eat or drink

And a dark desert all around.

The honey of her infant lips,

The bread and wine of her sweet smile,

The wild game of her roving eye

Does him to infancy beguile.

For as he eats and drinks he grows

Younger and younger every day;

And on the desert wild they both

Wander in terror and dismay.

Like the wild stag she flees away;

Her fear plants many a thicket wild,

While he pursues her night and day,

By various arts of love beguiled.

By various arts of love and hate,

Till the wide desert planted o’er

With labyrinths of wayward love,

Where roams the lion, wolf and boar,

Till he becomes a wayward babe

And she a weeping woman old.

Then many a lover wanders here,

The sun and stars are nearer rolled,

The trees bring forth sweet ecstasy

To all who in the desert roam,

Till many a city there is built,

And many a pleasant shepherd’s home.

But when they find the frowning babe

Terror strikes through the region wide;

They cry, ‘The Babe! the Babe is born!’

And flee away on every side.

For who dare touch the frowning form

His arm is withered to its root,

Lions, boars, wolves, all howling flee

And every tree does shed its fruit;

And none can touch that frowning form,

Except it be a woman old;

She nails him down upon the rock,

And all is done as I have told.

William Blake

Is.

Fun I love, but too much fun is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is better than fun, and happiness is better than mirth. I feel that a man may be happy in this world. And I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the Sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees.

William Blake

Between.

In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.

William Blake

Avoid the door enticingly labeled "control" ... it won't open.

Rather.

EPIGRAM 

You say their Pictures well Painted be, 

And yet they are Blockheads you all agree, 

Thank God, I never was sent to School 

To be Flogg’d into following the Stile of a Fool. 

The Errors of a Wise Man make your Rule 

Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.

William Blake

Existence.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.  What is now proved was once only imagined.  The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

William Blake

One.

Linnell, William Blake, 1861

There is a smile of love,

And there is a smile of deceit;

And there is a smile of smiles,

In which these two smiles meet.

(And there is a frown of hate,

And there is a frown of disdain;

And there is a frown of frowns

Which you strive to forget in vain,

For it sticks in the heart's deep core,

And it sticks in the deep backbone.)

And no smile that ever was smiled,

But only one smile alone--

That betwixt the cradle and grave

It only once smiled can be.

But when it once is smiled

There's an end to all misery.

William Blake

Worthwhile.

What has reason to do with anything worthwhile?

William Blake

Happy Birthday, William Blake

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.

William Blake, born on this day in 1757

Desire.

Divine.

Luigi Schiavonetti after Phillips, William Blake, 1808

One Power alone makes a Poet: Imagination, the Divine Vision.

William Blake

Sees.

William Blake's letter from Hercules Street to the Reverend Dr. John Trusler ...

To Revd Dr Trusler, Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey

13 Hercules Buildings,.Lambeth, 

August 23, 1799

Revd Sir

I really am sorry that you are falln out with the Spiritual World Especially if I should have to answer for it I feel very sorry that your Ideas& Mine on Moral Painting differ so much as to have made you angry with my method of Study. If I am wrong I am wrong in good company. I had hoped your plan comprehended All Species of this Art & Especially that you would not reject that Species which gives Existence to Every other. namely Visions of Eternity You say that I want somebody to Elucidate my Ideas. But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care. The wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the faculties to act. I name Moses Solomon Esop Homer Plato.

But as you have favord me with your remarks on my Design permit me in return to defend it against a mistaken one, which is. That I have supposed Malevolence without a Cause.--Is not Merit in one a Cause of Envy in another& Serenity & Happiness & Beauty a Cause of Malevolence. But Want of Money & the Distress of A Thief can never be alledged as the Cause of his Thievery. for many honest people endure greater hard ships with Fortitude We must therefore seek the Cause elsewhere than in want of Money for that is the Misers passion, not the Thiefs. 

I have therefore proved your Reasonings Ill proportiond which you can never prove my figures to be. They are those of Michael Angelo Rafael& the Antique & of the best living Models. I percieve that your Eyes is perverted by Caricature Prints, which ought not to abound so much as they do. Fun I love but too much Fun is of all things the most loathsom. Mirth is better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth--I feel that a Man may be happy in This World. And I know that This World Is a World of Imagination & Vision I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Every body does not see alike. To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some See Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate my proportions, & Some Scarce see Nature at all But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed such are its Powers You certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are not be found in This World. To Me This World is all One continued Vision of Fancy or Imagination & I feel Flatterd when I am told So. What is it sets Homer Virgil & Milton in so high a rank of Art. Why is the Bible more Entertaining & Instructive than any other book. Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination which is Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason Such is True Painting and such was alone valued by the Greeks & the best modern Artists. Consider what Lord Bacon says “Sense sends over to Imagination before Reason have judged & Reason sends over to Imagination before the Decree can be acted.”

Rouse.

Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fash[i]onable Fools to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying.  We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever; in Jesus our Lord.

William Blake, from Milton

Shaping.

Blake, Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, 1786

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,

That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

William Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Pitched'st.

Thomson, Summer Day, 1915

TO SUMMER

O Thou who passest thro’ our vallies in 

Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat 

That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer, 

Oft pitched’st here thy golden tent, and oft 

Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld 

With joy, thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair. 

Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard 

Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car 

Rode o’er the deep of heaven; beside our springs 

Sit down, and in our mossy vallies, on 

Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy 

Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream: 

Our vallies love the Summer in his pride. 

Our bards are fam’d who strike the silver wire: 

Our youth are bolder than the southern swains: 

Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance: 

We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy, 

Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven, 

Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat. 

William Blake

Laugh.

Constable, A Shepherd in a Landscape Looking Across Dedham Vale Towards Langham, 1811

LAUGHING SONG

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,

And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;

When the air does laugh with our merry wit,

And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,

And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;

When Mary and Susan and Emily

With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha ha he!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,

Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:

Come live, and be merry, and join with me,

To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha ha he!"

William Blake

Bring.

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

William Blake, from "Jerusalem"

Rule.

Schiavonetti, William Blake, 1808

The errors of a wise man make your rule, 

Rather than the perfections of a fool.

William Blake

Excellent.

An excellent album ...