Letters in Poems: William Blake

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk

William Blake (1757-1827) was a British Romantic poet, painter and printmaker who died on this day 189 years ago. His influence and ideas are possibly the strongest of all the Romantic poets, with passionate ideas about liberty and freedom for all, especially for women.

From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions—at four he saw God “put his head to the window”; around age nine, while walking through the countryside, he saw a tree filled with angels. Although his parents tried to discourage him from “lying," they did observe that he was different from his peers and did not force him to attend conventional school. He learned to read and write at home. At age ten, Blake expressed a wish to become a painter, so his parents sent him to drawing school. Two years later, Blake began writing poetry. When he turned fourteen, he apprenticed with an engraver because art school proved too costly. One of Blake’s assignments as apprentice was to sketch the tombs at Westminster Abbey, exposing him to a variety of Gothic styles from which he would draw inspiration throughout his career. After his seven-year term ended, he studied briefly at the Royal Academy.

Blake’s first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of apprentice verse, mostly imitating classical models. The poems protest against war, tyranny, and King George III’s treatment of the American colonies. He published his most popular collection, Songs of Innocence, in 1789 and followed it, in 1794, with Songs of Experience. Both books of Songs were printed in an illustrated format reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. The text and illustrations were printed from copper plates, and each picture was finished by hand in watercolors.

Blake was a nonconformist who associated with some of the leading radical thinkers of his day, such as Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. In defiance of 18th-century neoclassical conventions, he privileged imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions.

On the anniversary of his death, we are including a poem which is actually also a letter.

Poems from Letters

To my dear Friend, Mrs. Anna Flaxman

THIS 1 song to the flower of Flaxman’s joy, 

To the blossom of hope for a sweet decoy; 

Do all that you can, or all that you may, 

To entice him to Felpham and far away. 

Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there; 

The Ladder of Angels descends thro’ the air; 

On the turret its spiral does softly descend, 

Thro’ the village then winds, at my cot it does end. 

You stand in the village and look up to Heaven; 

The precious stones glitter on flights seventy-seven; 

And my brother is there, and my friend and thine 

Descend and ascend with the bread and the wine. 

The bread of sweet thought and the wine of delight 

Feed the village of Felpham by day and by night, 

And at his own door the bless’d Hermit does stand, 

Dispensing unceasing to all the wide land. 

Note 1. To Anna Flaxman] In a letter dated ‘H[ercules] B[uildings], Lambeth, 14 Sept., 1800,’ the ‘Hermit’ being William Hayley, Blake’s patron, who in letters to his friends loved to refer to himself as the ‘Hermit of Eartham’ or the ‘Hermit of the Turret’.

William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works (1908)

And also one of his most famous poems, "Eternity", with my own translation into Galician, since I could not find any other on the internet.


Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy 

 Does the winged life destroy 

He who kisses the joy as it flies 

Lives in eternity’s sunrise

Eternidade

O que se ata a unha alegría

destrúe a vida alíxera,

mais quen bica no seu voo á alegría,

vive no alborexar da eternidade

I also recommend taking a look at this article from Brainpickings discussing Blake's letters.