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
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?
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.
I have mental joys and mental health,Mental friends and mental wealth,I've a wife that I love and that loves me;I've all but riches bodily.
See what it is to play unfair!Where cheating is, there's mischief there.
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.
They suppose that Woman's Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sin.
He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children.
He's a Blockhead who wants a proof of what heCan't PerceiveAnd he's a Fool who tries to make such aBlockhead believe.
He who desires but does not act, breeds pestilence.
The essentials to happiness are something to love, something to do, and something to hope for.
What is now proved was only once imagined.
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwellThere God is dwelling too.