Diary of the Plague Year: Day 22 6 April 2020

After yesterday’s deluge the sun is out – I am just scurrying out to rake up more grass and then start mowing …

Fuck these April showers.

Another poem by Blake:

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

 

Diary of the Plague Year: Day 22 6 April 2020: Quotidian Poetry William Blake

William Blake was born in Soho, London, in 1757; and at the age of eight saw “a tree filled with angels” on Peckham Rye, their bright wings “bespangling every bough like stars”. His visionary gifts, as a painter, engraver and poet, never left him; and when he died, in a two-room garret in Fountain Court, Strand, in 1827, he was singing.

From:

Introduction
Richard Holmes

Songs of Innocence and Experience
Tate Publications

 

Diary of the Plague Year: Day 22 6 April 2020: Quotidian Poetry William Blake (1757-1827)

The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm.
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

From:

Songs of Innocence and Experience
Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul
William Blake

Tate Publishing