It is strange how the unconscious is always making suggestions. When I was a lot younger, these suggestions were often abrupt, sometimes a little mad and occasionally, I must confess, quite aggressive. In rare instances – all of which I remember now like they were yesterday – they were sublime. As in the case when I first set eyes on my beautiful and lovely wife. These days my id’s suggestions are gentle, guiding and numerous.
This morning’s waking suggestion was that I read some William Blake again. By many accounts Blake was what we would now call deeply bipolar, cycling between periods of white-dog rapture in the wonders of nature and existence itself, and bouts of black-dog depression. Blake died in poverty on 12th August 1827 and is buried in a pauper’s grave in Bunhill Row on the northern outskirts of the City of London.
Here are some extracts from Auguries of Innocence that he is thought to have written around 1803 though was not published until long after his death. Like its author, the poem cycles between many emotions. The poem starts with the famous hymn to the universe and eternity but then juxtaposes many lines of despair and decay, finishing with what one might call an ode to hope. The full poem is 132 lines long, but here are some verse-parts that ring well inside my mind:
Auguries of Innocence
A Dandelion in a field on a summer’s day, the blue sea in the distance, white puffs, a child skipping through barley.
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
Blake’s rage against evil.
A dog starv’d at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State
A Horse misus’d 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
Blake’s fear of death. And then hell.
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 Unbelievers’ fright
A double-edged suggestion of redemption.
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death
A plea for humility and against hubris.
The Child’s Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons
The Questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to Reply
Some lines relevant to today’s context maybe.
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesar’s Laurel Crown
The closing lines of the poem, with tones of hope.
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.
I like to think that in his closing words, Blake is simply saying: “Life is good. live It”.
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