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William Blake
'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
Came children walking two and two, in read, and blue, and green:
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow.
Oh what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.
Now like a mighty wild they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged man, wise guardians of the poor.
I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite;
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My worlds both parts, and (oh!) both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drowned no more:
But oh it must be burnt! alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: Let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee and Thy house, which doth in eating heal.
'Tis Christmas weather, and a country house
Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get
An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret
At that, it is half-said. The great carouse
Knocks hard upon the midnight's hollow door,
But when I knock at hers, I see the pit.
Why did I come here in that dullard fit?
I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.
Passing, I caught the coverlet's quick beat:--
Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain--
Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!
Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat.
The small bird stiffens in the low starlight.
I know not how, but shuddering as I slept,
I dreamed a banished angel to me crept:
My feet were nourished on her breasts all night.
the clock over our revels
is an angel on a leash
I give it a while to betray us
and tally all our time
this grave I occupy
you may have after me
by accident or angel
like a long last word
I could not say and so
must be
A lamb to change
into a bagpipe,
like angel to wife:
I sing in my chamber.
My cousin snow and my father rain
come with a letter from
my brother the angel:
Buy others a home, look after workmen,
trouble the parliament.
Every angel is falling—not like a skydiver
rushing toward reunion
but like a fish leaping above the calm surface of a lake,
entering a new universe of knives & eyelids.
Imagine being born at the height of your powers.
One rainfall & your chalk outline
disappears from the curb.
One hurricane and half the population
of your migratory species
vanishes over the Atlantic.
I don’t believe in angels, but I believe in their falling,
their helplessness against evil.
Nobody is watching over us except
for the blessed satellites, most of which
are in stable orbits.
We point our dishes at the farthest stars,
i look out for myself like a cushion
run over by a taxicab in a rain forest
the sky forming the top half of a sandwich
of radiation and gooseflesh hung up on poles to dry
all this is because an angel tripped over
a roller skate i left on the front porch of my childhood
where always the metallic savor of bees kept
boring a hole in the crucifix
i slept in my alternate selves until i got hungry
i measured the span between hunger and sunday dinner
the distance was overwhelming and full of fish
i turned on the radio and got caught up in emotions
but the strange thing is whatever i heard
seemed realer on the inside than the outside
i imagined the ground was racing to stay in one place
Rose, when I remember you,
Little lady, scarcely two,
I am suddenly aware
Of the angels in the air.
All your softly gracious ways
Make an island in my days
Where my thoughts fly back to be
Sheltered from too strong a sea.
All your luminous delight
Shines before me in the night
When I grope for sleep and find
Only shadows in my mind.
Rose, when I remember you,
White and glowing, pink and new,
With so swift a sense of fun
Altho' life has just begun;
Near the house flowed, or paused, the black Canal,
Edged by the timber piles so black and tall.
From the rotten fence I watched the horses pull
Along the footpath, slow and beautiful,
Moving with strength and ease, in their great size
And untired movement wonderful to my eyes;
Their dull brass clanking as each shaggy foot
Stamped the soft cinder track as fine as soot.
The driver lurched old and forbidding by,
Not seeing the child that feared to meet his eye.
I watched the rope dip, tighten, and the water flash
In falling, and then heard the hiss and splash;
I watched the barge drag slowly on and on,
Not dreaming how lovely a ship could ride the water upon,
Not dreaming how lovely flowing water was,
“And what would I do in heaven, pray,
Me with my dancing feet,
And limbs like apple boughs that sway
When the gusty rain winds beat?
And how would I thrive in a perfect place
Where dancing would be sin,
With not a man to love my face,
Nor an arm to hold me in?
The seraphs and the cherubim
Would be too proud to bend
To sing the faery tunes that brim
My heart from end to end.
The wistful angels down in hell
Will smile to see my face,
And understand, because they fell
From that all-perfect place.”