William Blake
William Blake
William Blakewas an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic works have been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 November 1757
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.
I feel that a Man may be happy in This World. And I know that This World Is a World of Imagination & Vision.
And I made a rural pen, / And I stained the water clear, / And I wrote my happy songs / Every child may joy to hear.
And because I am happy and dance and sing,They think they have done me no injury.
I cry, Love! Love! Love! happy happy Love! free as the mountain wind!
He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise.
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.
I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.
O! why was I born with a different face? / Why was I not born like the rest of my race?
Piping down the valleys wild, / Piping songs of pleasant glee, / On a cloud I saw a child.
I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine,But O, he lives in the moony light!I thought to find Love in the heat of day,But sweet Love is the comforter of night.
Man's Desires are limited by his Perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceived.
When I saw that rage was vainAnd to sulk would nothing gain,Turning many a trick and wileI began to soothe and smile.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse, how he shall take his prey.