Poems of William Blake | Page 4

to me?Underneath this tree;?Do father, mother, weep??Where can Lyca sleep?
"Lost in desert wild?Is your little child.?How can Lyca sleep?If her mother weep?
"If her heart does ache,?Then let Lyca wake;?If my mother sleep,?Lyca shall not weep.
"Frowning, frowning night,?O'er this desert bright?Let thy moon arise,?While I close my eyes."
Sleeping Lyca lay?While the beasts of prey,?Come from caverns deep,?Viewed the maid asleep.
The kingly lion stood,?And the virgin viewed:?Then he gambolled round?O'er the hallowed ground.
Leopards, tigers, play?Round her as she lay;?While the lion old?Bowed his mane of gold,
And her breast did lick?And upon her neck,?From his eyes of flame,?Ruby tears there came;
While the lioness?Loosed her slender dress,?And naked they conveyed?To caves the sleeping maid.
THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND
All the night in woe?Lyca's parents go?Over valleys deep,?While the deserts weep.
Tired and woe-begone,?Hoarse with making moan,?Arm in arm, seven days?They traced the desert ways.
Seven nights they sleep?Among shadows deep,?And dream they see their child?Starved in desert wild.
Pale through pathless ways?The fancied image strays,?Famished, weeping, weak,?With hollow piteous shriek.
Rising from unrest,?The trembling woman presse?With feet of weary woe;?She could no further go.
In his arms he bore?Her, armed with sorrow sore;?Till before their way?A couching lion lay.
Turning back was vain:?Soon his heavy mane?Bore them to the ground,?Then he stalked around,
Smelling to his prey;?But their fears allay?When he licks their hands,?And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes,?Filled with deep surprise;?And wondering behold?A spirit armed in gold.
On his head a crown,?On his shoulders down?Flowed his golden hair.?Gone was all their care.
"Follow me," he said;?"Weep not for the maid;?In my palace deep,?Lyca lies asleep."
Then they followed?Where the vision led,?And saw their sleeping child?Among tigers wild.
To this day they dwell?In a lonely dell,?Nor fear the wolvish howl?Nor the lion's growl.
THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER
A little black thing in the snow,?Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!?"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"--?"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
"Because I was happy upon the heath,?And smiled among the winter's snow,?They clothed me in the clothes of death,?And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,?They think they have done me no injury,?And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,?Who make up a heaven of our misery."
NURSE'S SONG
When voices of children are heard on the green,?And whisperings are in the dale,?The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,?My face turns green and pale.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,?And the dews of night arise;?Your spring and your day are wasted in play,?And your winter and night in disguise.
THE SICK ROSE
O rose, thou art sick!?The invisible worm,?That flies in the night,?In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed?Of crimson joy,?And his dark secret love?Does thy life destroy.
THE FLY
Little Fly,?Thy summer's play?My thoughtless hand?Has brushed away.
Am not I?A fly like thee??Or art not thou?A man like me?
For I dance?And drink, and sing,?Till some blind hand?Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life?And strength and breath?And the want?Of thought is death;
Then am I?A happy fly,?If I live,?Or if I die.
THE ANGEL
I dreamt a dream! What can it mean??And that I was a maiden Queen?Guarded by an Angel mild:?Witless woe was ne'er beguiled!
And I wept both night and day,?And he wiped my tears away;?And I wept both day and night,?And hid from him my heart's delight.
So he took his wings, and fled;?Then the morn blushed rosy red.?I dried my tears, and armed my fears?With ten-thousand shields and spears.
Soon my Angel came again;?I was armed, he came in vain;?For the time of youth was fled,?And grey hairs were on my head.
THE TIGER
Tiger, tiger, burning bright?In the forest of the night,?What immortal hand or eye?Could Frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies?Burnt the fire of thine eyes??On what wings dare he aspire??What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art?Could twist the sinews of thy heart??And, when thy heart began to beat,?What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain??In what furnace was thy brain??What the anvil? what dread grasp?Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,?And watered heaven with their tears,?Did he smile his work to see??Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright?In the forests of the night,?What immortal hand or eye?Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
MY PRETTY ROSE TREE
A flower was offered to me,?Such a flower as May never bore;?But I said "I've a pretty rose tree,"?And I passed the sweet flower o'er.
Then I went to my pretty rose tree,?To tend her by day and by night;?But my rose turned away with jealousy,?And her thorns were my only delight.
AH SUNFLOWER
Ah Sunflower, weary of time,?Who countest the steps of the sun;?Seeking after that sweet golden clime?Where the traveller's journey is done;
Where the Youth pined away with desire,?And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,?Arise from their graves, and aspire?Where