In love again

William Blake.

“I must create a System or be enslaved by another Man’s.”

"There Is No Natural Relgion"
[a]
The Argument. Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education. Naturally he is only a natural organ subject to Sense.
I. Man cannot naturally Percieve but through his natural or bodily organs.
II. Man by his reasoning power can only compare & judge of what he has already perceiv’d.
III. From a perception of only 3 sense or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth or fifth.
IV. None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but organic perceptions.
V. Man’s desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he had not perciev’d.
VI. The desires & perceptions of man, untaught by any thing but organs of sense, must be limited to objects of sense.
Conclusion. If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic and Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.

"There Is No Natural Religion"
[b]
I. Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he perceives more than sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover.
II. Reason, or the ratio (Latin ratio signifies both reason and calculation. Blake applies the term derogatorily to the 18th-century concept of reason as a calculating faculty whoe operations are limited to sense perceptions) of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.
III. [lacking]
IV. The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe would soon become a mill with complicated wheels.
V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man.
VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.
VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite and himself Infinite.
Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ration only sees himself only.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.

"The Divine Image"
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is God, our father dear:
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew.
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too.


This man is incredible. "Natural Religion" should prove to hold up to a week's chewing over, at least. Be still, my heart.

I love Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith, too. But Blake charges my soul.

Charlotte Smith:
From Elegiac Sonnets:
"Written at the Close of Spring"
The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove,
Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew,
Anemonies, that spangled every grove,
The primrose wan, and hare-bell mildly blue.
No more shall violets linger in the dell,
Or purple orchis variegate the plain,
Till Spring again shall call forth every bell,
And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.—
Ah! poor humanity! So frail, so fair,
Are the fond visions of thy early day,
Till tyrant passion, and corrosive care,
Bid all thy fairy colors fade away!
Another May new buds and flowers shall bring;
Ah! why has happiness—no second Spring?

"To Sleep"
Come, balmy Sleep! Tired nature’s soft resort!
On these sad temples all thy poppies shed;
And bid gay dreams, from Morpheus’ airy court,
Float in light vision round my aching head!
Secure of all thy blessings, partial Power!
On his hard bed the peasant throws him down;
And the poor sea boy, in the rudest hour,
Enjoys thee more than he who wears a crown.
Clasp’d in her faithful shepherd’s guardian arms,
Well may the village girl sweet slumbers prove
And they, O gentle Sleep! Still taste thy charms,
Who wake to labor, liberty, and love.
But still thy opiate aid dost thou deny
To calm the anxious breast; to close the streaming eye.

And to top it all off:
8 p.m. in a thunderstorm:
I. (as relating to fellow mortals, not God):
I am
my own. I am
not so weak
as to allow
imaginary forces
to shape and define
me.
I am
my own force.
I am what
I think, what
I feel, what
I believe.
On my own, I am enough.

II.
As I sit in my valley in this rare windstorm,
I feel my kinship with this force of nature.
Who can summon the wind?
Who can tell it where to blow?
Who can banish it?
Who can mitigate its destructive gales?
Or strengthen its gentle caresses?
It is itself and can only be enjoyed
as its Self.
The wind is within me and without me.
The wind is me and is not me.
We are Ourselves, unique and alike and bound by
our Selves.

III.
The flash of lightning heralds the storm, just as
the stroke of insight committed to words
prefaces the downpour, the battering winds,
the exquisitely wild candor of utter catharsis.
NOW is all that matters, the raw and living moment
that so mercilessly claims the soul’s total investment
and returns the sweet amnesia of reckless abandon—
And I—palms and face tipped skyward and accepting
—I will dance.


GOOD NIGHT.