William Blake and His Poetry

Allardyce Nicoll

• Publisher: Left of Brain Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781396319266
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

"There is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott." Writes WordsworthWilliam Blake was completely detached from his contemporary writers. He transcended all norms and devised his own style, considered to be insane during his lifetime and later a revolutionary genius.This book takes you behind the scenes of the creation of Blake's art: poems and paintings. "The only way to the heart of a poem's meaning lies through a consideration of the circumstances in which it had its birth." Nicoll states as he displays said circumstances, giving the art a more relatable, humane nature.Jonathan Jones, 21st century literary critic, writes of Blake that he's "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced" with full awareness that Britain has produced the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens. So buckle up and prepare yourself to embark on a thrilling journey into the mind of this genius!"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."
~William Wordsworth

V

TEDIOUS as the enumeration, bereft of the poetry, may appear, this account of Blake’s main theories is made absolutely essential by the fact that every work of his after 1789 has in it a mass of symbolic material. The first group of these, connected intimately with the “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” consists of many of the multitudinous shorter poems contained in the Rossetti and Pickering manuscripts, “Tiriel” (written about 1788-9), “The Book of Thel” (engraved 1789), and “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (engraved 1790). Closely connected with the last mentioned work is “The French Revolution” (set in type 1791).

All this time Blake was residing at 28 Poland Street, meeting, as I have shown, a number of philosophic revolutionaries at the publisher Johnson’s, flaunting his red cap of liberty, alternately brooding over his mystical theories and flaring with revolutionary passion. “Tiriel and “Thel” are the expressions of the mystical meditations; “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” with “The French Revolution,” shows us the revolutionary enthusiast.

“Thel,” engraved in the same year as the “Songs of Innocence,” is the poem most nearly connected with the earlier group. It is a marvel of art—a marvel of sweetly sought words and of limpid measure, of delicate colours and of harmonious line. It is possibly the most purely beautiful thing that Blake ever produced.

It introduced too, for the first time, if we preclude the undated and possibly earlier “Tiriel,” Blake’s unique metrical measure—a long seven-foot line consisting mainly of trochees. This became in time his normal measure, the measure which, “with a variety in every line,” developed into something which, for him, was entirely different from and greater than the “monotonous cadence like that used by Milton and Shakespeare … derived from the modern bondage of rhyming.”

Concerning this measure opinions differ, some, like Mr Ellis, claiming for it future glory, and others, like Professor Saintsbury, inclined to regard the most of it as mere rhythmical prose. In places, certainly, we must confess that the lines are prose, and often bad prose at that, yet notwithstanding those arid passages in “Milton” and in “Jerusalem,” Blake’s measure, as employed by him, displays a million beauties of rhythm and of poetic ingenuity. In his hands it betrays some of the suppleness and adaptability which our blank verse has done in the hands of our finest poets. With Blake it can be either terrible and awe-inspiring or gentle as the flowers of innocence. In “Jerusalem” he can exclaim in lamenting tones:

O I am nothing when I enter into judgment with thee!

If thou withdraw thy breath I die and vanish into Hades,

If thou dost lay thine hand upon me, behold I am silent:

If thou withhold thine hand, I perish like a fallen leaf.

O I am nothing: and to nothing must return again:

If thou withdraw thy breath, Behold, I am oblivion.

Or, changing the rhythm, he can thunder forth words of revolt and of horror:

Then the ancientest Peer, Duke of Burgundy, rose from the Monarch’s right hand, red as wines

From his mountains; an odour of war, like a ripe vineyard, rose from his garments,

And the chamber became as a clouded sky; o’er the Council he stretch’d his red limbs

Cloth’d in flames of crimson: as a ripe vineyard stretches over sheaves of corn,

The fierce Duke hung over the Council: around him crowd, weeping in his burning robe,

A bright cloud of infant souls his words fall like purple autumn on the sheaves.³⁰

“The Book of Thel” displays this metre used for gentle things, and the “mild song” found therein flows with an even movement, reminding us of the soft ripple of a summer stream. As this “Book of Thel” is one of the shortest, and at the same time one of the most easily understood of Blake’s prophetic works, I shall give it here in full. In reading it we must remember Blake’s study of Swedenborg. Apparently Thel is at first an innocent soul about to be born into this mortal world (which for Blake at this time was death). Then she laments at the transitoriness of all joy and is comforted by various lowly and humble things—by the Lily of the Valley (ll. 19-47), by a Cloud (ll. 48-78), by a Worm (ll. 49-84), and finally by a Clod of Clay (ll. 85-107). Clay is the material of our mortal bodies, and Thel wanders to her own grave-plot (her body to be) and listens to the voice of lamentation there. It is the poetry of this work, however, and not its symbolic content, that charms our sense. Its beauty is perfect. It is, indeed, what M. Berger calls it, one of the most beautiful elegies in the whole range of human poetry.

THE BOOK OF THEL

Thel’s Motto

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod,

Or Love in a golden bowl?

I

The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks–

All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,

To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:

Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard,

And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew:–

“O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?

Why fade these children of the spring, born but to smile and fall?

Ah! Thel is like a wat’ry bow, and like a parting cloud;

Like a reflection in a glass; like shadows in the water;

Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infant’s face;

Like the dove’s voice; like transient day; like music in the air.

Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head,

And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice

Of Him that walketh in the garden in the evening time!”

The Lily of the Valley, breathing in the humble grass,

Answered the lovely maid and said: “I am a wat’ry weed,

And I am very small, and love to dwell in lowly vales;

So weak, the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head.

Yet I am visited from heaven; and He that smiles on all,

Walks in the valley, and each morn over me spreads His hand,

Saying, ‘Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-

born lily-flower,

Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks;

For thou shalt be clothed in light, and fed with morning manna,

Till summer’s heat melts thee beside the fountains and the springs,

To flourish in eternal vales.’ Then why should

Thel complain?

Why should the mistress of the vales of Her utter a sigh?”

She ceas’d, and smil’d in tears, then sat down in her silver shrine.

Thel answer’d: “O thou little Virgin of the peaceful valley,

Giving to those that cannot crave, the voiceless, the o’ertired;

Thy breath doth nourish the innocent lamb; he smells thy milky garments,

He crops thy flowers, while thou sittest smiling in his face,

Wiping his mild and meeking mouth from all contagious taints.

Thy wine doth purify the golden honey; thy per-

fume,

Which thou dost scatter on every little blade of grass that springs,

Revives the milked cow, and tames the fire-

breathing steed.

But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun:

I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place?”

“Queen of the vales,” the Lily answer’d, “ask the tender Cloud,

And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky,

And why it scatters its bright beauty thro’ the humid air.

Descend, O little Cloud, and hover before the eyes of Thel.”

The Cloud descended, and the Lily bowed her modest head,

And went to mind her numerous charge among the verdant grass.

II

“O little Cloud,” the Virgin said, “I charge thee tell to me

Why thou complainest not, when in one hour thou fade away:

Then we shall seek thee, but not find. Ah! Thel is like to thee:

I pass away: yet I complain, and no one hears my voice.”

The Cloud then show’d his golden head and his bright form emerg’d,

Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel.

“O Virgin, know’st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs

Where Luvah doth renew his horses? Look'st thou on my youth,

And fearest thou, because I vanish and am seen no more,

Nothing remains? O Maid, I tell thee, when I pass away,

It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, to raptures holy.

Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers,

And court the fair-eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent:

The weeping virgin, trembling, kneels before the risen sun,

Till we arise, link’d in a golden band, and never part.

But walk united, bearing food to all our tender flowers.”

“Dost thou, O little Cloud? I fear I am not like thee,

For I walk thro’ the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers,

But I feed not the little flowers; I hear the warbling birds,

But I feed not the warbling birds; they fly and seek their food.

But Thel delights in these no more, because I fade away;

And all shall say, ‘Without a use this shining woman liv’d,

Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?’”

The Cloud reclin’d upon his airy throne, and answer’d thus:–

“Then if thou art the food of worms, O Virgin of the skies,

How great thy use, how great thy blessing!

Everything that lives

Lives not al...

Table of contents

• GENERAL PREFACE
• WILLIAM BLAKE & HIS POETRY
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• BIBLIOGRAPHY