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
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal EyesOf Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into EternityEver expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.
There is a smile of love,And there is a smile of deceit,And there is a smile of smilesIn which these two smiles meet.
When the stars threw down their spears, / And watered heaven with their tears, / Did he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
They suppose that Woman's Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sin.
Cruelty has a human heart, And jealousy a human face Terror, the human form divine, And secrecy, the human dress
Your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep.
What is now proved was only once imagined.
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwellThere God is dwelling too.
As a man is, so he sees.
Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.
Without contraries there is no progression.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
He who pretends to be either painter or engraver without being a master of drawing is an imposter.