5 So sang a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet; But a Pebble of the brook, Warbled out these metres meet:
'Love seeketh only Self to please,
10 To bind another to its delight; Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.'
2. This is the character that Blake later named imposes a moral bondage on sexual desire and 'Urizen' in his prophetic works. He is the tyrant other modes of human energy. who binds the mind to the natural world and also
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90 / WILLIAM BLAKE
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?
5 Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine,
10 And their fields are bleak & bare, And their ways are fill'd with thorns; It is eternal winter there.
For where-e'er the sun does shine, And where-e'er the rain does fall, 15 Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.
1794
The Chimney Sweeper
A little black thing among the snow Crying ' 'weep, weep,' in notes of woe! 'Where are thy father & mother? say?' 'They are both gone up to the church to pray.
5 'Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd among the winter's snow; They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
'And because I am happy, & dance & sing,
IO 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.'
1790-92 1794
Nurse's Song
When the voices of children are heard on the green And whisperings are in the dale, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale.
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T H E F L Y / 9 1 5 Then come home my children, the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise; Your spring & your day are wasted in play, And your winter and night in disguise. 1794 The Sick Rose O Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm 5 Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. 1794 The Fly Little Fly Thy summer's play My thoughtless hand Has brush'd away 5 Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? 10For I dance And drink & sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. 15If thought is life And strength & breath, And the want Of thought is death; 20Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die. 179 4
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92 / WILLIAM BLAKE
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'The Tyger'
The Tyger1
