William Blake - The Greatest Works of William Blake (With Complete Original Illustrations)

O Earth O Earth return!

Arise from out the dewy grass;

Night is worn,

And the morn

Rises from the slumberous mass,

Turn away no more:

Why wilt thou turn away

The starry floor

The watry shore

Is giv’n thee till the break of day.

Earth rais’d up her head,

From the darkness dread & drear.

Her light fled:

Stony dread!

And her locks cover’d with grey despair.

Prison’d on watry shore

Starry Jealousy does keep my den

Cold and hoar

Weeping o’er

I hear the Father of the ancient men

Selfish father of men

Cruel jealous selfish fear

Can delight

Chain’d in night

The virgins of youth and morning bear.

Does spring hide its joy

When buds and blossoms grow?

Does the sower?

Sow by night?

Or the plowman in darkness plow?

Break this heavy chain,

That does freeze my bones around

Selfish! vain!

Eternal bane!

That free Love with bondage bound.

Love seeketh not Itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care;

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay,

Trodden with the cattles 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 anothers loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.

Is this a holy thing to see,

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine.

And their fields are bleak & bare.

And their ways are fill’d with thorns.

It is eternal winter there.

For where-e’er the sun does shine,

And where-e’er the rain does fall:

Babe can never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

In futurity

I prophetic see,

That the earth from sleep,

(Grave the sentence deep)

Shall arise and seek

For her maker meek:

And the desart wild

Become a garden mild.

In the southern clime,

Where the summers prime,

Never fades away;

Lovely Lyca lay.

Seven summers old

Lovely Lyca told,

She had wanderd long,

Hearing wild birds song.

Sweet sleep come to me

Underneath this tree;

Do father, mother weep.—

Where can Lyca sleep.

Lost in desart wild

Is your little child.

How can Lyca sleep,

If her mother weep.

If her heart does ake,

Then let Lyca wake;

If my mother sleep,

Lyca shall not weep.

Frowning frowning night,

O’er this desart bright,

Let thy moon arise,

While I close my eyes.

Sleeping Lyca lay;

While the beasts of prey,

Come from caverns deep,

View’d the maid asleep

The kingly lion stood

And the virgin view’d,

Then he gambold round

O’er the hallowd ground;

Leopards, tygers play,

Round her as she lay;

While the lion old,

Bow’d his mane of gold.

And her bosom lick,

And upon her neck,

From his eyes of flame,

Ruby tears there came;

While the lioness,

Loos’d her slender dress,

And naked they convey’d

Tocaves the sleeping maid.

All the night in woe,

Lyca’s parents go:

Over vallies deep,

While the desarts weep.

Tired and woe-begone,

Hoarse with making moan:

Arm in arm seven days,

They trac’d the desart ways.

Seven nights they sleep,

Among shadows deep:

And dream they see their child

Starv’d in desart wild.

Pale thro’ pathless ways

The fancied image strays,

Famish’d, weeping, weak

With hollow piteous shriek

Rising from unrest,

The trembling woman prest,

With feet of weary woe;

She could no further go.

In his arms he bore,

Her arm’d with sorrow sore;

Till before their way,

A couching lion lay.

Turning back was vain,

Soon his heavy mane,

Bore them to the ground;

Then he stalk’d around,

Smelling to his prey.

But their fears allay,

When he licks their hands;

And silent by them stands.

They look upon his eyes

Fill’d with deep surprise:

And wondering behold,

A spirit arm’d in gold.

On his head a crown

On his shouldes down,

Flow’d his golden hair.

Gone was all their care.

Follow me he said,

Weep not for the maid;

In my palace deep,

Lyca lies asleep.

Then they followed,

Where the vision led:

And saw their sleeping child,

Among tygers wild.

To this day they dwell

In a lonely dell

Nor fear the wolvish howl,

Nor the lions growl.

A little black thing among the snow:

Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!

Where are thy father & mother? say?

They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil’d among the winters snow:

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy, & dance & sing,

They think they have done me no injury:

And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King

Who make up a heaven of our misery.

When the voices of children, are heard on the green

And whisprings are in the dale:

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home my chidren, the sun is gone down

And the dews of night arise

Your spring & your day, are wasted in play

And your winter and night in disguise.

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

Little Fly

Thy summers play,

My thoughtless hand

Has brush’d away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink & sing:

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength & breath:

And the want

Of thought is death;

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live,

Or if I die.

I Dreamt a Dream! what can it mean?

And that I was a maiden Queen:

Guarded by an Angel mild:

Witless woe, was ne’er beguil’d!

And I wept both night and day

And he wip’d my tears away

And I wept both day and night

And hid from him my hearts delight

So he took his wings and fled:

Then the morn blush’d rosy red:

I dried my tears & armed my fears,

With ten thousand shields and spears,

Soon my Angel came again;

I was arm’d, he came in vain:

For the time of youth was fled

And grey hairs were on my head.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?