The Greatest Works of William Blake (With Complete Original Illustrations). William Blake
And dream they see their child
Starv’d in desart wild.
Pale thro’ pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famish’d, weeping, weak
With hollow piteous shriek
Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman prest,
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.
In his arms he bore,
Her arm’d with sorrow sore;
Till before their way,
A couching lion lay.
Turning back was vain,
Soon his heavy mane,
Bore them to the ground;
Then he stalk’d around,
Smelling to his prey.
But their fears allay,
When he licks their hands;
And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes
Fill’d with deep surprise:
And wondering behold,
A spirit arm’d in gold.
On his head a crown
On his shouldes down,
Flow’d his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.
Follow me he said,
Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep.
Then they followed,
Where the vision led:
And saw their sleeping child,
Among tygers wild.
To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell
Nor fear the wolvish howl,
Nor the lions growl.
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.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil’d among the winters 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,
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.
Nurses Song
When the voices of children, are heard on the green
And whisprings are in the dale:
The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,
My face turns green and pale.
Then come home my chidren, 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.
The Sick Rose
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
The Fly
Little Fly
Thy summers play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink & sing:
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength & breath:
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
The Angel
I Dreamt a Dream! what can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen:
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe, was ne’er beguil’d!
And I wept both night and day
And he wip’d my tears away
And I wept both day and night
And hid from him my hearts delight
So he took his wings and fled:
Then the morn blush’d rosy red:
I dried my tears & armed my fears,
With ten thousand shields and spears,
Soon my Angel came again;
I was arm’d, he came in vain:
For the time of youth was fled
And grey hairs were on my head.
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,