The Poetry of William Blake

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."

The above is probably one of the most often quoted lines of William Blake's and is largely believed to be one of the driving principles in the personal philosophy of Jim Morrison, the infamous front man of The Doors. William Blake also happens to be one of the first poets that entranced me. I first came to know his work directly in a high school English class. Though the language felt antiquated, the biblical imagery and sense of Christian mysticism was something I could connect to given my Catholic upbringing.

One day while searching through the stacks of a used bookstore, I came across copies of Songs of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and bought them both. Blake's poetry was like glimpsing a new world where the poet was an interpreter of a divine message, a person with a secret calling that couldn't be understood by others. His words had a direct impact on my own nascent writings and would lead me to discover other artists that had fallen under his influence. The music of The Doors, Jim Jarmusch's film Dead Man, Aldous Huxley's cult book The Doors of Perception, and the band The Verve, whose song 'History; borrowed from Blake's poem 'London'.   

I still have the copies of those two paperbacks I picked up that day, I have also added The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake to my collection. These are a few of the pieces that I still go back to seeking inspiration.


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.

London

I wander thro' each charter'd street, 

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 

And mark in every face I meet 

Marks of weakness, marks of woe. 

In every cry of every Man, 

In every Infants cry of fear, 

In every voice: in every ban, 

The mind-forg'd manacles I hear 

How the Chimney-sweepers cry 

Every blackning Church appalls, 

And the hapless Soldiers sigh 

Runs in blood down Palace walls 

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse 

Blasts the new-born Infants tear

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse 

From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (plate 14)

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years

is true, as I have heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life,

and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy

whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged: this I shall

do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and

medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.