REMEMBERING

British Museum
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

In 2011 Larry and I each selected some passages from Blake's poetry which we found had entered our minds and lodged there because they are appropos to our condition. Here are a few more quotes which move me although I have not committed them to memory. I wish I had as ready mental access to Blake's poetry as I have to simple songs that I learned in childhood, to popular songs from in youth, and to hymns I learned through years of church attendance. It seems to me that the combination of music and words was the key to remembering. Writing posts for this blog is now my tool for learning what Blake had to teach.

Four Zoas, Night V, Page 64, (E 343)
"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"

Four Zoas, Night VII,  Page 98 [90], (E 370)
"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 370)
"And first he drew a line upon the walls of shining heaven    
And Enitharmon tincturd it with beams of blushing love"

Milton, Plate 28 [30], (E 126)
"While the poor indigent is like the diamond which tho cloth'd
In rugged covering in the mine, is open all within
And in his hallowd center holds the heavens of bright eternity"

Jerusalem, Plate 88, (E 247)
"The blow of his Hammer is Justice. the swing of his Hammer: Mercy.
The force of Los's Hammer is eternal Forgiveness;" 

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 9, (E 304)
"Then Eno a daughter of Beulah took a Moment of Time      
And drew it out to Seven thousand years with much care & affliction 
And many tears & in Every year made windows into Eden   
She also took an atom of space & opend its center
Into Infinitude & ornamented it with wondrous art"

Letters,  To Trusler, (E 702)
"But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to
Weak men.  That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not
worth my care.  The wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not
too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the
faculties to act."

Letters, to Butts, (E 712)
"Each grain of Sand
     Every Stone on the Land
     Each rock & each hill
     Each fountain & rill
     Each herb & each tree
     Mountain hill Earth & Sea
     Cloud Meteor & Star
     Are Men Seen Afar
...
And I heard his voice Mild
     Saying This is My Fold
     O thou Ram hornd with gold
...
The loud sea & deep gulf
     These are guards of My Fold
     O thou Ram hornd with gold"

Letters, to Butts, (E 722)
"This Earth breeds not our happiness"
     "Another Sun feeds our lifes streams"
     "We are not warmed with thy beams"
     "Thou measurest not the Time to me"
     "Nor yet the Space that I do see"
     "My Mind is not with thy light arrayd"
     "Thy terrors shall not make me afraid"
...
 Now I a fourfold vision see
     And a fourfold vision is given to me
     Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
     And three fold in soft Beulahs night
     And twofold Always.  May God us keep
     From Single vision & Newtons sleep"

Milton, Plate 30 (E 808)
[Inscription in reverse writing]
"How wide the Gulf &
Unpassable! between Simplicity & Insipidity / Contraries are
Positives / A Negation is not a Contrary"

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