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This book contains Songs of Innocence and of Experience, followed by an Appendix containing A Divine Image and The Book of Thel. My favourite poems are in Songs of Experience. They are darker and more critical of society, human nature and the Church than the Songs of Innocence. As they are well out of copyright, I will include a couple of them here.
The Garden of Love
I laid me down upon a bank Where Love lay sleeping I heard among the rushes dank Weeping, weeping
Then I went to the heath and the wild To the thistles and thorns of the waste And they told me how they were beguiled Driven out, and compelled to the chaste
I went to the Garden of Love And saw what I never had seen A Chapel was built in the midst Where I used to play on the green
And the gates of this Chapel were shut And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door So I turned to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore
And I saw it was filled with graves And tombstones where flowers should be And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds And binding with briars my joys and desires
London
I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man, In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the chimney-sweeper’s cry Every blackening church appalls; And the hapless soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most, through midnight streets I hear How the youthful harlot’s curse Blasts the new-born infant’s tear, And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.( )
William Blake was a major influence on Allen Ginsberg and on 'Howl,' especially 'Footnote to Howl' with its exclamations of 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' and ecstatic repetition.
An extraordinary collection. Blake was one of the most amazing poets ever to have written in English. The language would have been poorer had he not existed. ( )
The Garden of Love
I laid me down upon a bank
Where Love lay sleeping
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping
Then I went to the heath and the wild
To the thistles and thorns of the waste
And they told me how they were beguiled
Driven out, and compelled to the chaste
I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen
A Chapel was built in the midst
Where I used to play on the green
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore
And I saw it was filled with graves
And tombstones where flowers should be
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
And binding with briars my joys and desires
London
I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackening church appalls;
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse. ( )