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.

"In a verse-letter of 1800 Blake identified the crucial influences in his spiritual history as a series beginning with Milton and the Old Testament prophets and ending with the American War and the French Revolution" (Abrams, Reconsidered 37-38)--(The Complete Writings of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London, 1957), p. 799.

THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL

Proverbs of Hell

"The road of excess leads to the place of wisdom."

"He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."

"Dip him it the river who loves water."

"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."

"He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star."

"Eternity is in love with the productions of time."

"No bird soars too high. if he soars with his own wings."

"The most sublime act is to set another before you."

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."

"What is now proved was once, only imagin'd."

"One thought fills immensity."

"The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction."

"You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough."

"If others had not been foolish, we should be so."

"The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil'd."

"Exuberance is Beauty."

"Sooner nurse an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."

"Where man is not nature is barren."

"Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not believ'd."

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.

And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country. placing it under its mental deity.

Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects; thus began Priesthood.

Choosing forms of worship form poetic tales.

And at length they pronounced that the Gods had orderd such things.

Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

A Memorable Fancy

The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence and now seem to live in it in chains, are in truth. the causes of its life & the sources of all activity, but the chains are, the cunning of weak and tame minds. which have power to resist energy, according to the proverb, the weak in courage is strong in cunning.

Thus one portion of being, is the Prolific. the other, the Devouring: to the devourer it seems as if the producer was in his chains, but it is not so, he only takes portions of existence and fancies that the whole.

But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific unless the Devourer as a sea recieved the excess of his delights.

Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.

These two classes of men are always upon earth, & they should be enemies; whoever tries to reconcile them seeks to destroy existence.

Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.

Note. Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to separate them, as in the Parable of sheep and goats! & he says I came not to send Peace but a Sword.

Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought to be one of the Antediluvians who are our Energies.

Chorus

Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black. with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free: lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that wishes but acts not!

For every thing that lives is Holy

The Mental Traveller

I traveld thro' a Land of Men

A Land of Men & Women too

And heard & saw such dreadful things

As cold Earth wanderers never knew

For there the Babe is born in joy

That was begotten in dire woe

Just as we Reap in joy the fruit

Which we in better tears did sow

And if the Babe is born a Boy

He's given to a Woman Old

Who nails him down upon a rock

Catches his shrieks in cups of gold

She binds iron thorns around his head

She pierces both his hands & feet

She cuts his heart out at his side

To make him feel both cold & heat

Her fingers number every Nerve

Just as a Miser counts his gold

She lives upon his shrieks & cries

And she grows young as he grows old

Till he becomes a bleeding youth

And she becomes a Virgin bright

Then he rends up his Manacles

And binds her down for his delight

He plants himself in all her Nerves

Just as a Husbandman his mould

And she becomes his dwelling place

And Garden fruitful seventy fold

An aged Shadow soon he fades

Wandring round an Earthly Cot

Full filled all with gems & gold

Which he by industry had got

And these are the gems of the Human Soul

The rubies & pearls of a lovesick eye

The countless gold of the akeing heart

The martyrs groan & the lovers sigh

They are his meat they are his drink

He feeds the Beggar & the Poor

And the wayfaring Traveller

For ever open is his door

His grief is their eternal joy

They make the roofs & walls to ring

Till from the fire on the hearth

A little Female Babe does spring

And she is all of solid fire

And gems & gold that none his hand

Dares stretch to touch her Baby form

Or wrap her in his swaddling-band

But She comes to the Man she loves

If young or old or rich or poor

They soon drive out the aged Host

A Beggar at anothers door

He wanders weeping far away

Untill some other take him in

Oft blind & age-bent sore distrest

Untill he can a Maiden win

And to allay his freezing Age

The Poor Man takes her in his arms

The Cottage fades before his sight

The Garden & its lovely Charms

The Guests are scatterd thro' the land

For the Eye altering alters all

The Senses roll themselves in fear

And the flat Earth becomes a Ball

The Stars Sun Moon all shrink away

A desart vast without a bound

And nothing left to eat or drink

And a dark desart all around

The honey of her Infant lips

The bread & wine of her sweet smile

The wild gave of her roving Eye

Does him to Infancy beguile

For as he eats & drinks he grows

Younger & younger every day

And on the desart wild they both

Wander in terror & dismay

Like the wild Stag she flees away

Her fear plants many a thicket wild

While he pursues her night & day

By various arts of Love beguild

By various arts of Love & Hate

Till the wide desart planted oer

With Labyrinths of wayward Love

Where roams the Lion Wolf & Boar

Till he becomes a wayward Babe

And she a weeping Woman Old

Then many a Lover wanders here

The Sun & Stars are nearer rolld

The trees bring forth sweet Extacy

To all who in the desart roam

Till many a City there is Built

And many a pleasant Shepherds home

But when they find the frowning Babe

Terror strikes thro the region wide

They cry the Babe the Babe is Born

And flee away on Every side

For who dare touch the frowning form

His arm is witherd to its root

Lions Boars Wolves all howling flee

And every Tree does shed its fruit

And none can touch that frowning form

Except it be a Woman Old

She nails him down upon the Rock

And all is done as I have told

William Blake

Milton

Preface.

The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid: of Plato & Cicero. which all Men ought to contemn: are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible. but when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce: all will be set right: & those Grand Works of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men, will hold their proper rank, & the Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shakspeare & Milton were both curbd by the general malady & infection from the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword.

Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the University: who would if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fash[i]onable Fools to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever; in Jesus our Lord.

And did those feet in ancient time.

Walk upon Englands mountains green:

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands 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 Englands green & pleasant Land.

Would to God that the Lords people were Prophets.

Numbers XI. ch 29 v.

"Enthusiastic Admiration is the first Principle of Knowledge and its last."