FROM AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE
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.
A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons Shudders hell through all its regions. A dog starved at his master's gate Predicts the ruin of the state. A horse misused upon the road Calls to Heaven for human blood. Each outcry of the hunted hare A fibre from the brain does tear. A skylark wounded in the wing, A cherubim does cease to sing. The game-cock clipped and armed for fight Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer, wandering here and there, Keeps the human soul from care. The lamb misused breeds public strife, And yet forgives the butcher's knife. The bat that flits at close of eve Has left the brain that won't believe. The owl that calls upon the night Speaks the unbeliever's fright. He who shall hurt the little wren Shall never be beloved by men. He who the ox to wrath has moved Shall never be by woman loved. The wanton boy that kills the fly Shall feel the spider's enmity. He who torments the chafer's sprite Weaves a bower in endless night. The caterpillar on the leaf Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly, For the Last Judgment draweth nigh. He who shall train the horse to war Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat, Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath Writes revenge in realms of death. The beggar's rags fluttering in air, Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier, armed with sword and gun, Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands Shall buy and sell the miser's lands; Or, if protected from on high, Does that whole nation sell and buy. He who mocks the infant's faith Shall be mocked in age and death. He who shall teach the child to doubt The rotting grave shall ne'er get out. He who respects the infant's faith Triumphs over hell and death.
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills?
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!
I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
The negation is the Spectre, the reasoning power in
This is a false body, an incrustation over my immortal Spirit, a selfhood which must be put off and annihilated
To cleanse the face of my spirit by self-examination, To bathe in the waters of life, to wash off the not human, I come in self-annihilation and the grandeur of inspira- tion;
To cast off rational demonstration by faith in the Saviour, To cast off the rotten rags of memory by inspiration, To cast off Bacon, Locke, and Newton from Albion's cov-
To take off his filthy garments and clothe him with imagination;
To cast aside from poetry all that is not inspiration,
That it no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion
Cast on the inspired by the tame high finisher of paltry blots
Indefinite or paltry rhymes, or paltry harmonies,
Who creeps into state government like a caterpillar to destroy;
To cast off the idiot questioner, who is always questioning, But never capable of answering; who sits with a sly grin Silent plotting when to question, like a thief in a cave; Who publishes doubt and calls it knowledge; whose science is despair,
Whose pretence to knowledge is envy, whose whole science is
To destroy the wisdom of ages, to gratify ravenous envy That rages round him like a wolf, day and night, without
He smiles with condescension; he talks of benevolence and
And those who act with benevolence and virtue they murder time on time.
These are the destroyers of Jerusalem! these are the murderers
Of Jesus! who deny the faith and mock at eternal life, Who pretend to poetry that they may destroy imagination By imitation of nature's images drawn from remembrance. These are the sexual garments, the abomination of desolation,
Hiding the human lineaments, as with an ark and curtains Which Jesus rent, and now shall wholly purge away with fire,
Till generation is swallowed up in regeneration.
[TO THE DEISTS]
I saw a Monk of Charlemaine
Arise before my sight:
I talked with the Grey Monk as we stood In beams of infernal light.
Gibbon arose with a lash of steel,
And Voltaire with a racking wheel;
The schools, in clouds of learning rolled, Arose with war in iron and gold.
"Thou lazy Monk!' they sound afar, 'In vain condemning glorious war; And in your cell you shall ever dwell: Rise, War, and bind him in his cell!'
The blood red ran from the Grey Monk's side, His hands and feet were wounded wide, His body bent, his arms and knees Like to the roots of ancient trees.
When Satan first the black bow bent And the moral law from the Gospel rent, He forged the law into a sword, And spilled the blood of mercy's Lord.
Titus! Constantine! Charlemaine! O Voltaire! Rousseau! Gibbon! Vain Your Grecian mocks and Roman sword Against this image of his Lord;
For a tear is an intellectual thing; And a sigh is the sword of an angel king; And the bitter groan of a martyr's woe Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.
There laughs the sky, there zephyrs frolic train, And light-winged loves, and blameless pleasures reign: There, when two souls congenial ties unite, No hireling bonzes chant the mystic rite; Free every thought, each action unconfined, And light those fetters which no rivets bind. There in each grove, each sloping bank along, And flowers and shrubs, and odorous herbs among, Each shepherd clasped, with undisguised delight, His yielding fair one in the captain's sight; Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led, Preferred new lovers to her sylvan bed.
Learn hence each nymph, whose free aspiring mind Europe's cold laws, and colder customs bind; O! learn what Nature's genial laws decree! What Otaheite is, let Britain be!
Of whist or cribbage mark th' amusing game; The partners changing, but the sport the same: Else would the gamester's anxious ardour cool, Dull every deal, and stagnant every pool. -Yet must one man, with one unceasing wife, Play the long rubber of connubial life.
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