Poems of William Blake | Page 3

voice,?Infant noise;?Merrily, merrily, to welcome in the year.
Little lamb,?Here I am;?Come and lick?My white neck;?Let me pull?Your soft wool;?Let me kiss?Your soft face;?Merrily, merrily, to welcome in the year.
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 everything 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 covered with sheep."?"Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,?And then go home to bed."?The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,?And all the hills echoed.
INFANT JOY
"I have no name;?I am but two days old."?What shall I call thee??"I happy am,?Joy is my name."?Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!?Sweet joy, but two days old.?Sweet Joy I call thee:?Thou dost smile,?I sing the while;?Sweet joy befall thee!
A DREAM
Once a dream did weave a shade?O'er my angel-guarded bed,?That an emmet lost its way?Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,?Dark, benighted, travel-worn,?Over many a tangle spray,?All heart-broke, I heard her say:
"Oh my children! do they cry,?Do they hear their father sigh??Now they look abroad to see,?Now return and weep for me."
Pitying, I dropped a tear:?But I saw a glow-worm near,?Who replied, "What wailing wight?Calls the watchman of the night?
"I am set to light the ground,?While the beetle goes his round:?Follow now the beetle's hum;?Little wanderer, hie thee home!"
ON ANOTHER'S SORROW
Can I see another's woe,?And not be in sorrow too??Can I see another's grief,?And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,?And not feel my sorrow's share??Can a father see his child?Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
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 bird's grief and care,?Hear the woes that infants bear --
And not sit beside the next,?Pouring pity in their breast,?And not sit the cradle near,?Weeping tear on infant's tear?
And not sit both night and day,?Wiping all our tears away??Oh 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 year.
Oh He gives to us his joy,?That our grief He may destroy:?Till our grief is fled an gone?He doth sit by us and moan.
SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
INTRODUCTION
Hear the voice of the Bard,?Who present, past, and future, sees;?Whose ears have heard?The Holy Word?That walked among the ancient tree;
Calling the lapsed soul,?And weeping in the evening dew;?That might control?The starry pole,?And fallen, fallen light renew!
"O Earth, O Earth, return!?Arise from out the dewy grass!?Night is worn,?And the morn?Rises from the slumbrous mass.
"Turn away no more;?Why wilt thou turn away??The starry floor,?The watery shore,?Are given thee till the break of day."
EARTH'S ANSWER
Earth raised up her head?From the darkness dread and drear,?Her light fled,?Stony, dread,?And her locks covered with grey despair.
"Prisoned on watery shore,?Starry jealousy does keep my den?Cold and hoar;?Weeping o're,?I hear the father of the ancient men.
"Selfish father of men!?Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!?Can delight,?Chained in night,?The virgins of youth and morning bear?
"Does spring hide its joy,?When buds and blossoms grow??Does the sower?Sow by night,?Or the plowman in darkness plough?
"Break this heavy chain,?That does freeze my bones around!?Selfish, vain,?Eternal bane,?That free love with bondage bound."
THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE
"Love seeketh not itself to please,?Nor for itself hath any care,?But for another gives it ease,?And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sang a little clod of clay,?Trodden with the cattle's 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 another's loss of ease,?And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
HOLY THURSDAY
Is this a holy thing to see?In a rich and fruitful land, --?Babes reduced to misery,?Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song??Can it be a song of joy??And so many children poor??It is a land of poverty!
And their son does never shine,?And their fields are bleak and bare,?And their ways are filled with thorns:?It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,?And where'er the rain does fall,?Babes should never hunger there,?Nor poverty the mind appall.
THE LITTLE GIRL LOST
In futurity?I prophetic see?That the earth from sleep?(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise, and seek?for her Maker meek;?And the desert wild?Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime,?Where the summer's prime?Never fades away,?Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old?Lovely Lyca told.?She had wandered long,?Hearing wild birds' song.
"Sweet sleep, come