Happy Birthday William Blake!

Byrnzie

LONDON

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

catefrances

i was angry with my friend:
i told my wrath, my wrath did end.
i was angry with my foe:
i told it not, my wrath did grow.

and i watered it in fears
night and morning with my tears,
and i sunned it with smiles
and with soft deceitful wiles.

and it grew both day and night,
till it bore an apple bright,
and my foe beheld it shine,
and he knew that it was mine,--

and into my garden stole
when the night had veiled the pole;
in the morning, glad, i see
my foe outstretched beneath the tree.

prism

I laid me down upon a bank,
where love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
weeping, weeping.

Then I went to the heath and the wild,
to the thistles and thorns of the waste;
and they told me how they were beguiled,
driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

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 turned to the garden of love
that so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
and tombstones where flowers should be;
and priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
and binding with briars my joys and desires.

danielheyes

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

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!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Anon

"Men are admitted into heaven not because
they have curbed & govern'd their passions
or have no passions,but they have
CULTIVATED their UNDERSTANDINGS. The
treasures of heaven are not negations
of passions,but realities of intellect,from
which all passions eminate uncurbed
in their eternal glory"

William Blake


Amen