Poems of William Blake | Page 5

my Sunflower wishes to go!
THE LILY
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,?The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:?While the Lily white shall in love delight,?Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
THE GARDEN OF LOVE
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.
THE LITTLE VAGABOND
Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;?But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm.?Besides, I can tell where I am used well;?The poor parsons with wind like a blown bladder swell.
But, if at the Church they would give us some ale,?And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,?We'd sing and we'd pray all the livelong day,?Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,?And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;?And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,?Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
And God, like a father, rejoicing to see?His children as pleasant and happy as he,?Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,?But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.
LONDON
I wandered 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.
THE HUMAN ABSTRACT
Pity would be no more?If we did not make somebody poor,?And Mercy no more could be?If all were as happy as we.
And mutual fear brings Peace,?Till the selfish loves increase?Then Cruelty knits a snare,?And spreads his baits with care.
He sits down with his holy fears,?And waters the ground with tears;?Then Humility takes its root?Underneath his foot.
Soon spreads the dismal shade?Of Mystery over his head,?And the caterpillar and fly?Feed on the Mystery.
And it bears the fruit of Deceit,?Ruddy and sweet to eat,?And the raven his nest has made?In its thickest shade.
The gods of the earth and sea?Sought through nature to find this tree,?But their search was all in vain:?There grows one in the human Brain.
INFANT SORROW
My mother groaned, my father wept:?Into the dangerous world I leapt,?Helpless, naked, piping loud,?Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father's hands,?Striving against my swaddling-bands,?Bound and weary, I thought best?To sulk upon my mother's breast.
A POISON TREE
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.
A LITTLE BOY LOST
"Nought loves another as itself,?Nor venerates another so,?Nor is it possible to thought?A greater than itself to know.
"And, father, how can I love you?Or any of my brothers more??I love you like the little bird?That picks up crumbs around the door."
The Priest sat by and heard the child;?In trembling zeal he seized his hair,?He led him by his little coat,?And all admired the priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,?"Lo, what a fiend is here! said he:?"One who sets reason up for judge?Of our most holy mystery."
The weeping child could not be heard,?The weeping parents wept in vain:?They stripped him to his little shirt,?And bound him in an iron chain,
And burned him in a holy place?Where many had been burned before;?The weeping parents wept in vain.?Are such thing done on Albion's shore?
A LITTLE GIRL LOST
Children of the future age,?Reading this indignant page,?Know that in a former time?Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.
In the age of gold,?Free from winter's cold,?Youth and maiden bright,?To the holy light,?Naked in the sunny beams delight.
Once a youthful pair,?Filled with softest care,?Met in garden bright?Where the holy light?Had just removed the curtains of the night.
Then, in rising day,?On the