Quotes from William Blake

My mother groand! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud; Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my fathers hands: Striving against my swaddling bands: Bound and weary I thought best To sulk upon my mothers breast.

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

Re-engrav'd time after time Ever in their youthful prime My designs unchang'd remain Time may rage, but rage in vain For above Time's troubled fountains On the great Atlantic Mountains In my Golden House on high There they shine eternally

And where'er the rain does fall,    Babes should never hunger there,      Nor poverty the mind appall.

O winter! bar thine adamantine doors: the north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark deep-founded habitation.

I care not whether a man is Good or Evil; all that I care Is whether he is a Wise man or a Fool. Go! put off Holiness, And put on Intellect; or my thund'rous hammer shall drive thee To wrath, which thou condemnest, till thou obey my voice.

Never seek to tell thy love; Love that never told can be.

To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun.

I dried my tears, and armed my fears With ten-thousand shields and spears

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

The Harlots cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet The Winners Shout the Losers Curse Dance before dead Englands Hearse

To create a little flower is the labor of ages.

And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & 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 water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see?

The sun descending in the west, The evening star does shine; The birds are silent in their nest. And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower In heaven's high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night

Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.

Terrified at Non Existence, for such they deemd the death of the body, Los his vegetable hands outstretch'd; his right hand branching out in fibrous Strength siez'd the Sun; his left hand like dark roots cover'd the Moon, and tore them down, cracking the heavens across from immense to immense.

My Spectre around me night & day Like a Wild beast guards my way My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my Sin

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, Mock on, 'tis all in vain. You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a Gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye, But still in Israel's paths they shine. The Atoms of Democritus And Newton's Particles of light Are sands upon the Red sea shore Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

The death of Jesus set me free Then what have I to do with thee?

A little black thing among the snow Crying 'weep, 'weep, in notes of woe! Where are thy father & mother? say? They are both gone up to the church to pray. Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd 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, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury, And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, Who make up a heaven of our misery.

Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell, There God is dwelling too.

As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius

What God is he writes laws of peace & clothes him in a tempest?

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.