And in depths of icy dungeons
Closed the father and the sons.
But, when once I did descry
The Immortal Man that cannot die,
Through evening shades I haste away
To close the labours of my day.
The door of Death I open found,
And the worm weaving in the ground:
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
RULY, my Satan, thou art but a dunce,
And dost not know the garment from
Every harlot was a virgin once,
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan. Though thou art worshiped by the names divine Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still
The son of morn in weary night's decline,
The lost traveller's dream under the hill.
HIS song to the flower of Flaxman's joy; To the blossom of hope, for a sweet decoy ;
Do all that you can, or all that you may, To entice him to Felpham and far away.
Away to sweet Felpham, for heaven is there;
The ladder of angels descends through the air;
On the turret1 its spiral does softly descend,
Through the village then winds, at my cot it does
end.
You stand in the village and look up to heaven;
The precious stones glitter on flight seventy-seven;
And
my brother is there; and my friend and thine
Descend and ascend with the bread and the wine.
The bread of sweet thought and the wine of delight
Feed the village of Felpham by day and by night; And at his own door the bless'd Hermit 2 does
Dispensing unceasing to all the wide land.
'Turret of Hayley's house.
2 Hayley, the "Hermit of Eartham."
TO MR. BUTTS.1
O my friend Butts I write
My first vision of light,
On the yellow sands sitting.
The sun was emitting
His glorious beams
From heaven's high streams.
Over sea, over land,
My eyes did expand
Into regions of air,
Away from all care;
Into regions of fire,
Remote from desire:
The light of the morning
Heaven's mountains adorning.
In particles bright,
The jewels of light
Distinct shone and clear.
Amazed and in fear
I each particle gazed,
Astonished, amazed;
For each was a man
These verses come from a letter sent by Blake from
Felpham to Mr. Butts on 2nd October, 1800.
Each rock and each hill,
Each fountain and rill,
Each herb and each tree,
Mountain, hill, earth, and sea,
Cloud, meteor, and star,
Are men seen afar."
I stood in the streams
Of heaven's bright beams,
And saw Felpham sweet
Beneath my bright feet,
In soft female charms;
And in her fair arms
My shadow I knew,
my wife's shadow too,
And my sister and friend.
We like infants descend
In our shadows on earth,
Like a weak mortal birth,
My eyes more and more,
Like a sea without shore,
Continue expanding,
The heavens commanding,
Till the jewels of light,
Heavenly men beaming bright,
Appeared as one man,
Who complacent began
My limbs to infold
In his beams of bright gold:
Like dross purged away
All my mire and my clay.
Soft consumed in delight,
In his bosom sun-bright
I remained.
Soft he smiled,
And I heard his voice mild,
Saying: "This is my fold,
O thou ram horned with gold,
Who awakest from sleep
On the sides of the deep.
On the mountains around
The roarings resound
Of the lion and wolf,
The loud sea and deep gulph.
These are guards of my fold,
O thou ram horned with gold!”
And the voice faded mild,-
I remained as a child;
All I ever had known
Before me bright shone:
I saw you and your wife
By the fountains of life.
Such the vision to me
Appeared on the sea.
TO MRS. BUTTS.1
IFE of the friend of those I most revere, Receive this tribute from a harp sincere ;
Go on in virtuous seed-sowing on
mould
Of human vegetation, and behold
Your harvest springing to eternal life,
Parent of youthful minds, and happy wife.
1 Sent in the same letter as the preceding verses.
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