The Divine Image Defined

Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love the four tradition Christian virtues are used as the human form for William Blake’s poem, Divine Image, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and later in the joint collection of Songs of Innocence and of Experience five years later. William Blake is trying to convey in this work that when we pray, we pray mostly for mercy, pity, peace, and love. These things we pray for make up God and his virtues that we praise him for his caring and comforting us through prayer.

 In the poem it states that mercy is the human heart, pity is a human face, love is the human form divine, and peace is the human dress relating to humans, yet it also states, “For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,/ Is God our Father dear;/ And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,/ Is man, his child and care.” These lines reflect that mercy, pity, peace, and love are not only in God, but that those virtues are us and we are the “divine image”.

The stanza, “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” is explaining that we share the same virtues as God that anyone who is praying, is praying to the divine image and we must all love it that means we are praying to ourselves and we must also learn to love ourselves not only God. The lines, “Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,/ There God is dwelling too” means since we are all of those virtues, God is living inside of us as the peacemaker because it is the only one missing from those four.

Prose Poem: Fire

Looking at the fire in my chimney at midnight that warms my house I start to wonder: how could something so beautiful bring life and at the same time destruction? How could the roaring of the flames bring heat that brings us back from the dead, that those same exact flames could also kill us in a flash leaving the body unrecognizable?

How can that same fire who could destroy acres of forests ignited from the sun's burning rays, bring it back to life even better after it destroyed it? Is it cause it is not only destruction but also life? Watching the fire, hearing its crisp and crackling sound is soothing and calming yet at the same time  unnerving. Calming when I look at the flames change color and how it goes up and down. The crackling when I throw a piece of wood into it making the flame go higher to give out more heat. Unnerving that at any given moment a spark can fly away from where it is suppose to be and land on wood burning my house down.

If that where to happen then there wouldn't be anything left but to pray that the fire's enemy would come soon: water. The tears that would have rolled down my face, where to be the one's coming down the sky to beat away the fire and save me from the hard, lonely, and cold streets.

Yet on the long run if the rain never came and the firemen couldn't do anything to stop it and had to watch my home slowly burn away, and in its place be left ashes of the past that leave me out in the cold. I hope that there would have been a lesson worth all that pain and suffering of losing my home. Maybe the lesson would have been that materialistic things are not forever, but perishable items that break and are replaceable. The only one true thing one has in life and in this world forever other than yourself, will always be your family whether in your heart or physically. I would have later on been grateful for this lesson of letting go of materialistic things and hold onto things that are more sacred. The fire may have destroyed a home but it built a new and better home.

"Lord Byron" (Community Blog)

Looking at the blog's done by my fellew peers, the "Lord Byron" blog really caught my attention.  This blog composed by Alejandra Hernandez, Danielle Henry, Natasha King, and Sydney Leliefeld is devoted to Byron and is really helpful if you want to know more about his life and his works. The blog has a nice background appealing to the eye, and a picture of Byron which I thought was good because that way people would know how he looked like. I like that this blog has many informative posts, including one that compares Byron and Wordsworth. Byron's style combines culture and nature into one, while Wordsworth thinks the opposite, nature is an ecological understanding isolated from culture. That would help someone who does not know anything about Romanticism because they would not be learning about one poet, but would have a glimpse of another great poet, William Wordsworth. I also found it helpful that they provided a tremendous amount of insight of Byron's life. It found it extremely interesting that he would not want to take any money for his work and would rather be in dept to withhold his image to not be seen as a writer. I also would have never guessed that a poet would have ever had a wild partying or "playboy" lifestyle. His partying lifestyle began at Cambride University where he also found his playboy lifestyle appealing to both sexes. Or the fact that he had numerous affairs with married women, one being Lady Caroline, who she later made his life miserable. This blog has many videos that are used as a visual that are helpful if you need more understanding of it. Overall, this blog has many useful posts for people who want to learn more about Byron, his poems, and his life. I really enjoyed reading all of these posts, they helped me have more of an inside look of what he went through and clarifies some of his poems. If you want to learn anything about the Romanticism era, aiming more towards the poet Byron than the other great poets, I suggest you read this blog.

The Angel Who Got Lost

The Angel, a poem by William Blake published with Songs of Experience in 1974 refers to when he was a child and had frequent visions of God and angels. For example, when he was four years old he claims to have seen “God put his head to the window” and when he was nine he looked up at a tree and saw it “filled with angels”.  From a young age Blake possessed one of the most valuable gifts one could have, imagination mixed along with innocence. 

The first stanza means that he had a dream where a kind and gentle angel protects him from distress, but he couldn’t fool the angel. The second stanza says that he cries day and night most probably from problems he was facing, so the guardian angel comforts him by drying away his tears. He couldn’t fool the angel, but “hid from him my heart’s delight” causing the angel to take off his wings and leave him behind taking his innocence along with him leaving the boy to face the harsh reality of life alone because he wasn’t open enough to him.

The third stanza is generally stating the next morning was a “blushed rosy red” reflecting the shame the boy felt for disgracing the angel. With the angel gone he had no other choice but to wipe his own tears away while he “armed my fears/ With ten-thousand shields and spears” meaning he was becoming older and started to loose his innocence because he started to face real problems enabling him to dream more about the reality of situations, rather than angels and other childlike things. When one becomes older our experience and knowledge determine our final perception of faith. This isn’t surprising that people are afraid of things that can’t be explained with science or on a rational level, like God and if he really does exist or is just something we have to believe in for one of the most intriguing questions, why are we here, what is our purpose? With this in mind, the boy and people just put an end to believing and trusting that any “guardian angel” can protect us from the harsh reality of the world, so we arm ourselves with reasoning and logic.

The final stanza explains how years have passed and the little boy lost his childhood to turn into an elderly man with grey hairs that reflect he is prepared, educated, and has gained wisdom preparing him for life. The angel finally comes back into his new stage of life, but he had no purpose in returning because the once little boy was now armed with reasoning and close to death.

The Little Black Boy Revealed

William Blake’s poem, The Little Black Boy, was published during the time when slavery was still legal and the abolition act was still not fully considered. This work of William Blake focuses on racism and how every man is created equal to each other. The poem starts with the little black boy saying how he was born in the south and is implied that he is a slave. Black is always used as the color that symbolizes evil and sin in terms of religion, while white symbolizes the opposite innocence and purity. When it says, “And I am black, but O, my soul is white!” is saying that appearances can be deceiving because on the outside he is “evil” but on the inside he is actually pure and you can't judge everyone based on the color of their skin.

When his mother said, “Look at the rising sun: there God does live,/ And gives His light, and gives His heat away” is using the sun as a metaphor for God and the “rising sun” refers that there is going to be a change, and this change will relate to slavery. In the poem, it is implied that black people are more connected to God than the white people because of their “black bodies” and “sunburnt face” that result from the sun’s rays, and since God is the sun, blacks received more of his “beams of love”. Once everyone learns to love, have compassion for each other and treat each other as equals, when they die they will hear His voice and go to heaven surrounding his “golden tent” everyone united.

The stanza, “When I from black and he from white cloud free,/ And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,/ I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear/ To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;/ And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,/ And be like him, and he will then love me” refers to when the little black boy and English boy get free from their “clouds”, which are their bodies, they will leave their body behind but their souls would go to God’s “tent” or kingdom. Once there, the little black boy “shades” the English boy because the paleness of him shows that he was distanced from God and his love by the treatment of slaves. When the English boy learns that they are all the same, the little black boy will then stand up and unshield him, letting him receive all of God’s rays of love. The little black boy then stroke the English boy’s silver hair caused of the “rays” because now they are both equal and love one another.

When Blake used the neutral colors gold and silver for God’s “golden tent” and the English boy’s “silver hair” because they symbolize moral values, spirituality and wisdom. Spirituality was gold because that is where all of the spirits went afterlife, while wisdom was silver for the hair symbolizing that the English boy has gained experience making him wiser.  The picture (above) by William Blake illustrates the main theme of the poem, black and white children are all the same because God knows no difference since they are all his.

William Blake's Family Life

William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 to James Blake and Catherine Harmitage Blake. He was the oldest of seven children, which two died in infancy. The youngest, Robert Blake, born in 1767 became Blake’s favorite sibling. Even though Blake lived in the city, he was within walking distance of the fields, hills, and rustic villages bordering London where he spent most of his time. When Blake was as young as four years old, he started to manifest visions such as seeing God “put his head to the window”. Blake’s parents didn’t encourage these visions and his insistence almost led to a beating by his father because he believed Blake was lying. Another one of these visions occurred when Blake was nine years old and it consisted of him looking up at a tree “filled with angels”. Even from a young age Blake was a boy with a high temper and for this physical punishment was useless against him. Blake’s father didn’t force him to attend school for which Blake was glad for. Having been basically self-taught, Blake did however receive instruction in drawing, painting, and engraving, which his father saw as marketable skills and encouraged him.

On August 18, 1782 Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher, who signed the marriage register with an X. Under her husband’s guidance she became an assistant and disciple. Even though it was a stable and successful marriage, they didn’t have any children. Once Catherine commented, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company; he is always in Paradise.” This may be one of the reasons they never had children.

When Blake withdrew from his small print-selling shop with the partnership of James Parker that only lasted the year of 1784 because of Blake’s fiery temper, he attacked him along with the Mathews with his work of An Island in the Moon. As a result, in 1785 he, Catherine, and Robert moved to Poland Street. Robert joined the family while they still lived at 27 Broad Street. Blake had difficulty succeeding as an independent engraver while training Robert in drawing, painting, and engraving. During the winter of 1787, Robert fell ill and died, most likely of tuberculosis of the lungs, after being cared for by Blake for 14 nights and days without sleep at his brother’s bedside. As Robert died, Blake saw his spirit rise up and go through the ceiling, “clapping his hands for joy”. Exhausted and clearly depressed, Blake slept for three straight days and nights. He felt Robert’s spirit visit him and in a dream Robert taught him the secret of stereotype printing.

Blake’s life was marked by conflict, lack of widespread recognition, and lasting success. This would end on August 12,1827 in a two room flat house owned by relatives of his wife, Catherine, because there William Blake passed away. Catherine died four years later. In Blake’s final years he found a small group of disciples who wrote about his death: “Just before he died his countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten’d and He burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven.”