IMAGE OF PITY

Although Blake recognized the possibility that pity may become a false, destructive emotion, he acknowledged the Eternal dimension of pity. In the large colour print called Pity he is portraying pity as an expression of caring and compassion which is the Soul's response to another Soul in need.

The pity of Los and Enitharmon in giving bodies to the dead from the ranks of Urizen's war is an expression of the healing which results from Enitharmon's sorrow over her sons and Los' moderating his fury. Pity and wrath become constructive rather than destructive forces.

Four Zoas, Night VII, PAGE 98 [90], (E 370)
"Then I can sigh forth on the winds of Golgonooza piteous forms
That vanish again into my bosom but if thou my Los
Wilt in sweet moderated fury. fabricate forms sublime
Such as the piteous spectres may assimilate themselves into
They shall be ransoms for our Souls that we may live"

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 98 [90], (E 371)
"But Los loved them & refusd to Sacrifice their infant limbs
And Enitharmons smiles & tears prevaild over self protection
They rather chose to meet Eternal death than to destroy
The offspring of their Care & Pity Urthonas spectre was comforted
But Tharmas most rejoicd in hope of Enions return
For he beheld new Female forms born forth upon the air
Who wove soft silken veils of covering in sweet rapturd trance
Mortal & not as Enitharmon without a covering veil"
...
Night 8
"Then Los said I behold the Divine Vision thro the broken Gates
Of thy poor broken heart astonishd melted into Compassion & Love
And Enitharmon said I see the Lamb of God upon Mount Zion
Wondring with love & Awe they felt the divine hand upon them
For nothing could restrain the dead in Beulah from descending
Unto Ulros night tempted by the Shadowy females sweet
Delusive cruelty they descend away from the Daughters of Beulah
And Enter Urizens temple Enitharmon pitying & her heart
Gates broken down. they descend thro the Gate of Pity
The broken heart Gate of Enitharmon She sighs them forth upon the wind
Of Golgonooza Los stood recieving them
For Los could enter into Enitharmons bosom & explore
Its intricate Labyrinths now the Obdurate heart was broken"

Pity
image from wikimedia

This pity which expresses the Divine Vision results from absorbing suffering into the psyche and embracing it as thread from which Life Eternal is woven. In Blake's image pity is not a one way street from those who have to those who have not. It is involvement in an organic relationship among the breath of God, the incarnate spirit, newborn babe and the receptive human.

If this picture is approached by the Reasoning Spectre, it fails to communicate a coherent message. The Spectre may ask exactly which figure is pity and what is the nature of the pity expressed. To ask whose baby it is and why the lady is lying alone is trying to explain the picture by 'analytics' which yields only confusion. Entering into the picture through imagination invites the various figures to act as a whole which can speak to one intuitively.

Psalms 34
[18] The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

Another post on Pity.
Pity at the Metropolitan.

DIVINE IMAGE

Erdman, in The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, lists A Divine Image as SONG 55 and states that it was included in one late copy of Songs of Innocence & of Experience. In his The Illuminated Blake, however he states that it was unpublished by Blake although it was originally etched in about 1791 for Songs of Experience. Blake substituted in Songs of Experience The Human Abstract as a contrary to The Divine Image of Songs of Innocence.

SONGS 55, (E 32)
A DIVINE IMAGE

"Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror, the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress

The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge."









There is no doubt that Blake felt deeply the failure of man which is expressed in the lines of A Divine Image, but that was not the note on which he wanted to end Songs of Experience or the myth of Creation, Fall and Return which he assembled in the body of his work. If the Selfhood were to have the last say he may express it in the words of A Divine Image .

But the note on which Blake would like to end Songs of Innocence & of Experience may be expressed in these words from Milton Percival in William Blake's Circle of Destiny.

"The most that can be accomplished [in the Last Judgment], so far as the Elect are concerned, is to destroy their power over others. Mortal life and a Last Judgment exist that the Redeemed may be freed from error's power as it is constantly exercised by the Elect. The restless rational mind will never be stilled. Doubt will always arise, the principle of self will remain; but the Redeemed who live largely by their emotions, will have freed themselves from the Elect, who live by rational doubts and fears. They will have learned to disregard the rationalists who harass them and to live in the translucence in their own hearts, the Christ himself."

Blake's intention was that the term Divine Image be reserved for the aspects of God and Man which are expressed in this section from Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, Plate 96, (E 256)
"Jesus replied Fear not Albion unless I die thou canst not live
But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me
...
Albion replyd. Cannot Man exist without Mysterious
Offering of Self for Another, is this Friendship & Brotherhood
I see thee in the likeness & similitude of Los my Friend

Jesus said. Wouldest thou love one who never died
For thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee
And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself
Eternally for Man Man could not exist. for Man is Love:
As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death
In the Divine Image nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood"
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QUOTES FROM EXPERIENCE III

Blake's task in the final three poems of Songs of Innocence and of Experience is reconciling the disparate attitudes which result from seeing the world as pure and holy and seeing the world as damaged and defiled. Those who see only as Innocents are escapists; those who see only through Experience are cynics or tyrants. In his little lines from Auguries of Innocence, Blake suggests an answer to this conundrum:

Songs and Ballads, Auguries of Innocence, (E 491)
"It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands"

Although Blake was inconsistent in the arrangement of the poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience most of the later copies have the same three poems to conclude the series. Since he had been 'Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul', we may be justified in expecting a resolution of the contraries here at the end.

To Tirzah resolves the issue of the contraries by leaving behind the sexual organization of generation to assume the spiritual body free from earthly considerations. It is our 'Mortal part' which is bound to sensory perceptions. Blake, in To Tirzah, is showing that confining our perception to that provided by the material mortal body, closes us to freedom to live in the spirit which Jesus offers.

The Schoolboy focuses attention of imagination as the means through which our minds learn to experience eternal values. The Schoolboy was originally included in Songs of Innocence where it functions well, but placed at the end of Experience it serves the purpose of showing how the development of the imagination opens a gate into the Eternal.

Voice of the Ancient Bard pulls together contraries in invitation and warning. The 'image of truth new born' can be pursued if we avoid the old traps into which we habitually fall.

Each of these three poems mentions being born. The resolution of the contraries of innocence and experience, the joy and woe of life, is rebirth to an understanding of the error in each so that it may be annihilated. An adequate 'Image of Truth' is fully aware of the Eternal nature underlying reality, and assimilates an awareness of shortcomings of our minds and the world we create through our errors of perception.

SONGS 52, (E 30)
To Tirzah

"Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth,
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free;
Then what have I to do with thee?

The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride
Blow'd in the morn: in evening died
But Mercy changd Death into Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work & weep.

Thou Mother of my Mortal part.
With cruelty didst mould my Heart.
And with false self-decieving tears,
Didst bind my Nostrils Eyes & Ears.

Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free,
Then what have I to do with thee?"
[text on illustration: It is Raised a Spiritual Body]

SONGS 53, (E 31)
The School Boy

"I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour.
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learnings bower,
Worn thro' with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy,
Sit in a cage and sing.
How can a child when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring.

O! father & mother, if buds are nip'd,
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'd
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and cares dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy.
Or the summer fruits appear,
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear."

SONGS 54, (E 31)
The Voice of the Ancient Bard.

"Youth of delight come hither:
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason.
Dark disputes & artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze,
Tangled roots perplex her ways,

How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead,
And feel they know not what but care
And wish to lead others, when they should be led"

Image from British Museum
Songs of Innocence and of Experience

This image was included as a final plate in three early copies of Songs of Innocence and of Experience; later it was replaced by the poem To Tirzah. Erdman (The Illuminated Blake) writes of this picture: "the children gathering here are supporting the Savior in the sense that their belief (like the piper's in Songs 27) enable them and us to see his human form. When Blake replaced this picture with 'To Tizrah' he was choosing another way to say 'It is Raised a Spiritual Body.'" (Page 388) Erdman also says that looking at this plate we can 'understand that the Eternal Man 'has risen,' out of the realm of 'Contrary States,' (Page 94)
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TYGER & THE FALL

Blake's best known short poem is from:
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, (E 24)
The Tyger

"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?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

A second occurrence of the line from Tyger, ' the stars threw down their spears,' appears in the Four Zoas, Night V, Page 64 (E344). Urizen is speaking.

"O Fool could I forget the light that filled my bright spheres
Was a reflection of his face who calld me from the deep

I well remember for I heard the mild & holy voice
Saying O light spring up & shine & I sprang up from the deep
He gave to me a silver scepter & crownd me with a golden crown
& said Go forth & guide my Son who wanders on the ocean

I went not forth. I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath
I calld the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark
The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away
We fell. I siezd thee dark Urthona In my left hand falling

I siezd thee beauteous Luvah"

Judging from the amount of interest there is in Blake's Tyger, it hooks into an archetypal reality which is easily activated. There is much agreement that Tyger is saying something important, but little agreement on what it is saying. Here is another stab.

One mystifying line in the poem, "when the stars threw down their spears," appears also in the Four Zoas at a critical moment when Urizen/Satan refuses obedience to the Almighty. At that point a chain reaction begins - with the stars. So the line in Tyger reminds us of the cataclysmic event when Urizen fell and took with him Urthona and Luvah.

Three Zoas Falling



It is easy for me to see Tyger as autobiographical. The conflict within Blake of his reason and imagination, is expressed in the dynamic battle between Urizen and Los thoughout Blake's myth. The Tyger himself can represent the battlefield Blake sees within. Forces of beauty, restraint, explosive activity and expanded consciousness compete for dominance. Blake's struggle is to achieve that balance which will allow his imagination a free reign of expression, without becoming an uncontrolled destructive force.

Look at the words in Tyger that make one think
of Los: fire, hammer, anvil, furnace, chain;
of Urizen: bright, aspire, seize, stars;
of Luvah: heart, began to beat;
of Jesus: tears, smile, work, Lamb.

The multiple parts within the human mind make possible an internal state of competition. But the use of the word 'symmetry' signifies to me the balanced pattern in which Blake saw the Four Zoas as aspects of the psyche. The symmetry becomes fearful when the delicate alignment is disturbed. We have seen how every aspect of the Divine Humanity is affected by any refusal of a Zoa to accept his appointed role. (See blog post Fallen Zoas) All are 'members of one another'. (Paul - Ephesians 4:25)

The Tyger's fascination may come from the unresolved tension which it portrays - a state we each frequently experience.
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QUOTES FROM EXPERIENCE II

In developing the contrast between the states of innocence and experience Blake moves to darker manifestations in the world which is created by the failure to live in awareness, harmony and brotherhood. The inner and outer worlds reflect one another. What we see without is within as well. As we progress through Songs of Experience we are shown the most disheartening and disturbing things which go on in our world. We are being shown what our internal lack of unity, integrity and compassion produces in the world which mirrors our psyches.

Beginning with The Tyger the darkness becomes more apparent, the symmetry is fearful, and the source of the disturbing symptoms is questioned - 'Did he who made the Lamb make thee?' At the same time that Blake begins to look at cruel realities he locates their origins in fallen institutions of government, church, morality and family.

SONGS 42, (E 24)
The Tyger

"When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? "

SONGS 44, (E 26)
The GARDEN of LOVE

"And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires."

SONGS 46, (E 26)
LONDON

"How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls"

SONGS 47, (E 27)
The Human Abstract.

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor:
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;"

SONGS 49, (E 28)
A POISON TREE.

"I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow."

SONGS 50, (E 28)
A Little BOY Lost

"The weeping child could not be heard.
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They strip'd him to his little shirt.
And bound him in an iron chain." 

Cruelty reaches its maximum in The Little Boy Lost where the parents can only weep as their son is executed for honestly confessing that the God he saw was in humanity.  Some of what Blake reveled in Songs 42 - 51 is the pain involved in confronting harsh realities, the role that religion plays in destroying love, ways in which the system justifies the perversion of love, and the resulting loss of potential for healing.

Index to Songs of Innocence and of Experience

 

 

Yale Center for British Art

           Songs of Innocence & of Experience

                           Holy Thursday

Song 38, Copy F

CHIMNEY SWEEPER

SONGS of INNOCENCE 12 (E 10)
THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER

"When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep,

Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl'd like a lambs back, was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.

And so be was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black,

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm,
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm."

Weep, weep, weep doesn't just mean sweep, sweep, sweep it also means weep,
weep, weep! This introduces a note of sadness, an emotional content to the
poem. The plight of the child and of children like him is brought to
our attention. The child is aware of his situation and feels it deeply.
His dream of seeing himself and his friends being locked in coffins
frightens him as would the actual experience of climbing the narrow
spaces within chimneys.

The Angel has a 'key' to release him and his friends. From the
experience the children have with the Angel, I suspect Blake was using
the Angel to represent the religious position taken by the established
church saying: 'forget about your pain', 'be a good boy', 'God will
reward you later.' Could the Angel's key be church doctrines which
soothe the conscience of the believers? That Tom was 'happy and warm'
because of his experience with the Angel seems false - spoken
ironically.

Can children be trapped in many ways - by their poverty, by the neglect
of their families, by the economic structure of their society, by living
in this mortal flesh, by a church whose doctrines supported oppression?
Yes, in all these ways and many more, of which Blake was acutely aware
and to which he wanted to sensitize us.

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE, 37, THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER (E 22)





Blake doesn't set limits on how his
poem can be interpreted. He
presents it to us, and we respond
according to our psychological,
spiritual, social or political condition.
As Damon (A Blake Dictionary)
says, "symbolism is a dream which
fails it its entire meaning is obvious."    

QUOTES FROM EXPERIENCE

Songs Of Innocence and Of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul

Songs of Experience immediately announces that the unmarred world of innocence has been fractured. Earth is invited to rise like the morn from the 'slumberous mass'. Innocence has been a sleep from which man must awake in order to continue to develop. Consciousness of the state in which man exists is the first requisite for transitioning to a more complete psychological pattern. Songs of Experience is designed to raise awareness of the things we accept in the outer world which could and should be changed. Blake's poems call on us to see deceptions and distortions which we accept internally as well as externally.

Blake intended that his readers see more than individual poems in Songs of Experience. The progress of the Soul through Experience should be discernible as we read. Since the soul's journey is not direct, the poems do not follow a single direct thread. The fact that Blake shifted the arrangement of the poems in various copies indicates that there is not a single best way to indicate the progression through experience. Blake may have intended to treat the internal stages through which the soul travels in the earlier poems of Experience, and moved to external indications of the distance the soul has moved from its source in the later poems.

The quotes in this post (through Song 41, 'The Angel'), focus on internal changes which accompany the falling away from Innocence. Some of the conditions which are apparent in these early poems of Experience which were less present in Innocence are: fear, failure to love, inability to see the holy, denial of harsh realities, and accepting the unfulfilled status.

British Museum
Copy B, 1794, plate 29
Frontispiece to "Songs of Experience"
SONGS 30, (E 18)
Introduction.

"O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass,"

SONGS 31, (E 18)
EARTH'S Answer.

" Selfish father of men
Cruel jealous selfish fear
Can delight
Chain'd in night
The virgins of youth and morning bear."

SONGS 32, (E 19)
The CLOD & the PEBBLE

"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."

SONGS 33, (E 19)
HOLY THURSDAY

"Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?"

SONGS 34 - 35
The Little Girl Lost

"While the lioness,
Loos'd her slender dress,
And naked they convey'd
To caves the sleeping maid.

Songs 36, (E 22)
The Little Girl Found

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".

SONGS 37 (E 23)
The Chimney Sweeper

"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."

SONGS 41, (E 24)
The Angel

"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."
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