Life of William Blake: With Selections from His Poems and Other Writings, Volume 1

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Macmillan and Company, 1880 - 431 pages

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Page 69 - I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had...
Page 65 - I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And 'Thou shalt not...
Page 119 - Mock on' Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on: 'tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a gem, Reflected in the beams divine. Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel's paths they shine.
Page 53 - Love seeketh not Itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair." So sung a little Clod of Clay Trodden with the cattle's feet, But a Pebble of the brook Warbled out these metres meet: "Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to Its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.
Page 337 - Whether in Heaven ye wander fair, Or the green corners of the earth, Or the blue regions of the air, Where the melodious winds have birth; Whether on crystal rocks ye rove, Beneath the bosom of the sea Wandering in many a coral grove Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!
Page 64 - AH! SUN-FLOWER Ah, sun-flower, weary of time, Who countest the steps of the sun, Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller's journey is done: Where the youth pined away with desire, And the pale virgin shrouded in snow Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my sun-flower wishes to go.
Page 41 - Thames' waters flow. O what a multitude they seem'd, these flowers of London town! Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own. The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands.
Page 336 - TO THE MUSES. WHETHER on Ida's shady brow Or in the chambers of the East, The chambers of the Sun, that now From ancient melody have ceased ; Whether in heaven ye wander fair Or the green corners of the earth, Or the blue regions of the air, Where the melodious winds have birth...
Page 33 - The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child, But I am black, as if bereav'd of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree, And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east, began to say: "Look on the rising sun: there God does live, And gives his light, and gives his heat away; And...
Page 255 - Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots ; Their port was more than human, as they stood : I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play i

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