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
In every cry of every man,In every infant's cry of fear,In every voice, in every ban,The mind-forged manacles I hear.
But to go to school in a summer morn, Oh, it drives all joy away! Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day in sighing and dismay
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love / All pray in their distress.
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.
When Sir Joshua Reynolds died / All Nature was degraded; / The King dropped a tear in the Queen's ear, / And all his pictures faded.
To the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions that a vine filled with grapes
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy.
When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite.
When the voices of children are heard on the green, / And laughing is heard on the hill, / My heart is at rest within my breast, / And everything else is still.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots.
Wandering in many a coral grove, / Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!