Latest / The Book of Jasher / Songs of Innocence and Experience (version 3) - William Blake

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Songs of Innocence and Experience (version 3) - William Blake · The Book of Jasher

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  Speaker 1: Songs of Innocence from Songs of Innocence and Songs of
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  Speaker 1: Experience by William Blake. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Copeland, Songs of Innocence, Introduction, Piping down the Valleys,
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  Speaker 1: Wild Piping, Songs of pleasant Glee On a cloud. I
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  Speaker 1: saw a child, and he, laughing, said to me, pipe
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  Speaker 1: a song about a lamb. So I piped, with merry cheer. Piper,
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  Speaker 1: pipe that song again. So I piped. He wept to
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  Speaker 1: hear drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe, sing thy songs
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  Speaker 1: of happy cheer. So I sung the same again, while
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  Speaker 1: he wept with joy to hear piper, sit thee down
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  Speaker 1: and write in a book that all may read. So
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  Speaker 1: he vanish'd from my sight. And I pluck'd a hollow reed,
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  Speaker 1: and I made a rural pen, and I stained the
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  Speaker 1: water clear, and I wrote my happy songs. Every child,
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  Speaker 1: make joy to hear the shepherd. How sweet is the
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  Speaker 1: shepherd's sweet lot, from the moon to the evening his drays.
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  Speaker 1: He shall follow his sheep all the day and his
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  Speaker 1: tongue shall be filled with praise, for he hears the
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  Speaker 1: lamb's innocent call, and he hears the ewes tender reply.
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  Speaker 1: He is watchful while they are in peace, for they
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  Speaker 1: know when their shepherd is nigh the echoing green. The
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  Speaker 1: sun does arise and make happy the skies. The merry
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  Speaker 1: bells ring to welcome the spring. The skylark and thrush.
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  Speaker 1: The birds of the bush sing louder round to the
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  Speaker 1: bell's cheerful sound. While our sports shall be seen on
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  Speaker 1: the echoing green. Old John with white hair does laugh
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  Speaker 1: away care sitting under the oak among the old folk.
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  Speaker 1: They laugh at our play, and soon they all say
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  Speaker 1: such such were the joys when we, all girls and
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  Speaker 1: boys in our youth time, were seen on the echoing green.
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  Speaker 1: Till the little ones weary no more can be merry.
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  Speaker 1: The sun does descend in our sports of an end
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  Speaker 1: round the lapse of their mothers. Many sisters and brothers,
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  Speaker 1: like birds in their nest, are ready for rest and
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  Speaker 1: sport no more seen on the darkening green. The lamb,
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  Speaker 1: little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?
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  Speaker 1: Gave thee life, and bid thee feed by the stream,
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  Speaker 1: and what the mead gave thee clothing of delight, softest clothing,
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  Speaker 1: wooly bright, gave THEE such a tender voice, make all
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  Speaker 1: the veil's rejoice. Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou
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  Speaker 1: know maid thee, little Lamb. I'll tell THEE, little Lamb,
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell THEE. He is called by thy name, for
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  Speaker 1: he calls himself a lamb. He is meek, and he
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  Speaker 1: is mild. He became a little child. I a child,
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  Speaker 1: and thou a lamb. We are called by his name,
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  Speaker 1: Little Lamb. God bless thee, little Lamb. God bless thee,
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  Speaker 1: the little black boy. My mother bore me in the
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  Speaker 1: southern wild, and I am black, But o my soul
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  Speaker 1: is white, white as an angel is the English child.
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  Speaker 1: But I am black as if bereathed of light. My
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  Speaker 1: mother taught me underneath a tree, and sitting down before
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  Speaker 1: the heat of day, she took me on her lap
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  Speaker 1: and kiss at me, and, pointing to the east, began
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  Speaker 1: to say, look on the rising sun. There God does
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  Speaker 1: live and gives his light and gives his heat away,
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  Speaker 1: and flowers and trees and beasts and men receive comfort
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  Speaker 1: in morning, joy in the noon day, and we are
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  Speaker 1: put on earth a little space that we may learn
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  Speaker 1: to bear the beams of love. And these black bodies
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  Speaker 1: and this sun burnt face are but a cloud, and
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  Speaker 1: like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd
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  Speaker 1: the heat to bear, the cloud will vanish. We shall
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  Speaker 1: hear his voice saying, come out from the grove my
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  Speaker 1: love and care, and round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.
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  Speaker 1: Thus did my mother say, and kiss it me. And
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  Speaker 1: thus I say to little English boy, when I from
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  Speaker 1: black and he from white, cloud free, and round the
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  Speaker 1: tent of God like lambs we joy, I'll shade him
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  Speaker 1: from the heat till he can bear to lean in
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  Speaker 1: joy upon our father's knee. And then I'll stand and
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  Speaker 1: stroke his silver hair and be like him, and he
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  Speaker 1: will then love me. The blossom marry Mary sparrow under
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  Speaker 1: leaves so green. A happy blossom sees you, swiftest arrow,
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  Speaker 1: seek your cradle, narrow near my bosom. Pretty pretty robin
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  Speaker 1: under leaves so green. A happy blossom hears you sob
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  Speaker 1: and sob, and pretty pretty robin near my bosom. The
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  Speaker 1: chimney sweeper. When my mother died, I was very young
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  Speaker 1: and my father sold me, while yet my tongue could
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  Speaker 1: scarcely cry weep, weep, weep, weep. So your chimneys I sweep,
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  Speaker 1: and in soot I sleep. There's little Tom Daker who
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  Speaker 1: cried when his head, that curd like a lamp's back,
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  Speaker 1: was shaved. So I said, hush, Tom, never mind it,
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  Speaker 1: for when your head's bare, you know that the soot
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  Speaker 1: cannot spoil your white hair. And so he was quiet.
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  Speaker 1: And that very night, as Tom was asleeping, he had
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  Speaker 1: such a sight that thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned
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  Speaker 1: and Jack, were all of them locked up in coffins
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  Speaker 1: of black. And by came an angel who had a
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  Speaker 1: bright key, and he opened the coffins and set them
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  Speaker 1: all free. Then down a green plain, leaping laughing, they
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  Speaker 1: run and wash in a river and shine in the sun. Then,
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  Speaker 1: naked and white, all their bags left behind, they rise
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  Speaker 1: upon clouds and sport in the wind. And the angel
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  Speaker 1: told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, he'd have
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  Speaker 1: God for his father and never want joy. And so
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  Speaker 1: Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark and got
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  Speaker 1: with our bags and our brushes to work. Though the
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  Speaker 1: morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm. So if
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  Speaker 1: all do their duty, they need not fear harm. The
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  Speaker 1: little boy lost, father, Father, Where are you going? Who
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  Speaker 1: do not walk so fast? Speak? Father, Speak to your
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  Speaker 1: little boy, or else I shall be lost. The night
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  Speaker 1: was dark, No father was there. The child was wet
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  Speaker 1: with dew. The mire was deep, and the child did weep,
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  Speaker 1: and away the vapor flew. The little boy found. The
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  Speaker 1: little boy lost in the lonely fen, led by the
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  Speaker 1: wandering light, began to cry. But God, ever nigh, appeared
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  Speaker 1: like his father in white. He kissed the child, and
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  Speaker 1: by the hand led and to his mother brought who
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  Speaker 1: in sorrow pale through the lonely dale, her little boy weeping,
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  Speaker 1: soft laughing song. When the green woods laugh with a
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  Speaker 1: voice of joy, and the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
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  Speaker 1: When the air does laugh with our merry wit, and
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  Speaker 1: the green hill laughs with the noise of it, When
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  Speaker 1: the meadows laugh with lively green and the grasshopper laughs
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  Speaker 1: in the merry scene, when Marry and Susan and Emily
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  Speaker 1: with their sweet round bouths sing ha ha he, When
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  Speaker 1: the painted birds laugh in the shade where our table
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  Speaker 1: with cherries and nuts is spread, Come live and be
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  Speaker 1: merry and join with me to sing the sweet chorus
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  Speaker 1: of ha ha hee a cradle song. Sweet dreams form
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  Speaker 1: a shade o'er my lovely infant's head, Sweet dreams of
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  Speaker 1: pleasant streams by happy, silent moony beams. Sweet sleep with
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  Speaker 1: soft down weave, thy brows, an infant crown, sweet sleep,
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  Speaker 1: angel mild hover, o'er my happy child, Sweet smiles in
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  Speaker 1: the night, hover o'er my delight. Sweet smiles, mother smiles
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  Speaker 1: all the livelong night, beguiles, sweet moans, dove like sighs,
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  Speaker 1: chaste not slumber from thy eyes, sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
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  Speaker 1: all the dovelike moans, beguiles. Sleep, sleep, happy child, All
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  Speaker 1: creation slept and smil'd sleep, Sleep, happy sleep. While o'er thee,
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  Speaker 1: thy mother weep sweet babe in thy face, holy image,
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  Speaker 1: I can trace sweet babe. Once like THEE thy maker
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  Speaker 1: lay and wept for me, wept for me, for THEE,
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  Speaker 1: for all when he was an infant, small Thou his
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  Speaker 1: image ever see heavenly face that smiles on THEE, smiles
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  Speaker 1: on THEE, on me, on all who became an infant.
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  Speaker 1: Small infant smiles are his own smiles Heaven and Earth
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  Speaker 1: to peace, beguiles, the divine image. To mercy, pity, peace,
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  Speaker 1: and love. All pray in their distress, and to these
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  Speaker 1: virtues of delight return their thankfulness. For mercy, pity, peace
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  Speaker 1: and love is God our Father, dear and mercy, pity,
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  Speaker 1: peace and love is man his child. And care for
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  Speaker 1: mercy as a human heart, pity a human face, and
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  Speaker 1: love the human form, divine and peace the human dress.
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  Speaker 1: Then every man of every clime that prays in his distress,
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  Speaker 1: praise to the human form, divine love, mercy, pity, peace,
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  Speaker 1: and all must love the human form. In Heathen, Turk
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  Speaker 1: or Jew where mercy, love and pity dwell, their God
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  Speaker 1: is dwelling too. Holy Thursday. Twas on a Holy Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: their innocent faces clean. The children walking two and two
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  Speaker 1: in red and blue and green gray headed beadles walk
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  Speaker 1: before with wands as white as snow, till into the
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  Speaker 1: high dome of palls they like Thames waters flow. Oh
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  Speaker 1: what a multitude they seem, these flowers of London town.
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  Speaker 1: Seated in companies, they sit with radiance all their own.
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  Speaker 1: The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs,
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  Speaker 1: thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.
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  Speaker 1: Now like a mighty wind, they raise to heaven the
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  Speaker 1: voice of song, or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven.
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  Speaker 1: Among beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of
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  Speaker 1: the poor. Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel
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  Speaker 1: from your door. Night, the sun descending in the west,
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  Speaker 1: the evening star'd are shine. The birds are silent in
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  Speaker 1: their nest, and I must seek for mine. The moon.
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  Speaker 1: Like a flower in Heaven's high bower, with silent delight,
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  Speaker 1: sits and smiles on the night. Farewell, green fields and
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  Speaker 1: happy groves, where flocks have took delight, where lambs have nibbled,
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  Speaker 1: silent moves, the feet of angels bright unseen, They poor,
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  Speaker 1: blessing and joy without ceasing, on each bud and blossom,
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  Speaker 1: and each sleeping bosom. They look in every thoughtless nest
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  Speaker 1: where birds are cover'd warm. They visit caves of every
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  Speaker 1: beast to keep them all from harm. If they see
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  Speaker 1: any weeping that should have been sleeping, they pour sleep
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  Speaker 1: on their head and sit down by their bed. When
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  Speaker 1: wolves and tigers howl for prey, they pitying, stand and weep,
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  Speaker 1: seeking to drive their thirst away and keep them from
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  Speaker 1: the sheep. But if they rush dreadful, the angels most
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  Speaker 1: heedful receive each mild spirit new worlds to inherit. And
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  Speaker 1: there the lion's ruddy eyes shall flow with tears of
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  Speaker 1: gold and pitying the tender cries, and walking round the fold,
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  Speaker 1: saying wrath by his meekness and by his health. Sickness
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  Speaker 1: is driven away from our immortal day. And now beside thee,
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  Speaker 1: bleaching lamb, I can lie down and sleep, or think
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  Speaker 1: on him who bore thy name. Gray's after thee, and
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  Speaker 1: weep for wash'd in life's river. My bright mane for
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  Speaker 1: ever shall shine like the gold, as I God o'er
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  Speaker 1: the fold spring, sound the flute. Now it's mute. Birds
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  Speaker 1: delight day and night, nightingale in the dale, lark in sky, merrily, merrily, merrily,
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  Speaker 1: to welcome in the year. Little boy full of joy,
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  Speaker 1: little girl, sweet and small coctus crow, So do you
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  Speaker 1: merry voice, infant noise merrily merrily to welcome in the year.
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  Speaker 1: Little lamb, here I am, come and lick my white neck,
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  Speaker 1: Let me pull your soft wool, let me kiss your
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  Speaker 1: soft face. Merry merrily, we welcome in the year. Nurse's
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  Speaker 1: song when voices of children are heard on the green
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  Speaker 1: and laughing is heard on the hill. My heart is
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  Speaker 1: at rest within my breast, and everything else is still.
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  Speaker 1: Then come home, my children. The sun has gone down
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  Speaker 1: and the dews of night arise. Come. Come, leave off play,
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  Speaker 1: and let us away till the morning appears. In the skies. No, no,
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  Speaker 1: let us play, for it is yet day and we
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  Speaker 1: cannot go to sleep. Besides, in the sky the little
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  Speaker 1: birds fly, and the hills are all covered with sheep. Well, well,
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  Speaker 1: go and play till the light fades away, and then
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  Speaker 1: go home to bed. The little ones leaped and shouted
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  Speaker 1: and laughed, and all the hills ethiko ed. Infant joy,
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  Speaker 1: I have no name, ay am, but two days old?
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  Speaker 1: What shall I call thee? I happy am? Joy? Is
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  Speaker 1: my name, sweet Joy? Befal thee, pretty joy, sweet joy,
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  Speaker 1: But two days old, sweet Joy, I call thee. Thou'dst smile,
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  Speaker 1: I sing the while sweet Joy, befal thee. A dream?
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  Speaker 1: Once a dream did weave a shade o'er my angel
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  Speaker 1: guarded bed that an emmet lost its way. Whereon grass
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  Speaker 1: methought I lay troubled, wildered and forlorn, dark, benighted, travel
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  Speaker 1: worn o'er many a tangl'd spray all heart broke. I
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  Speaker 1: heard her say, Oh, my children, do they cry? Do
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  Speaker 1: they hear their father sigh? Now? They look abroad to see?
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  Speaker 1: Now return and weep for me pitying, I dropped a tear,
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  Speaker 1: But I saw a glow worm near, who replied, what
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  Speaker 1: wailing wight calls the watchman of the night. I am
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  Speaker 1: set to light the ground while the beetle goes his round.
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  Speaker 1: Follow now the beetle's hum, little wanderer, hie thee home
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  Speaker 1: on another's sorrow? Can I see another's woe and not
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  Speaker 1: be in sorrow? Too? Can I see another's grief and
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  Speaker 1: not seek for kind relief? Can I see a falling
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  Speaker 1: tear and not feel my sorrow's share? Can a father
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  Speaker 1: see his child weep, nor be with sorrow filled? Can
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  Speaker 1: a mother sit and hear an infant groan, an infant fear? No? No,
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  Speaker 1: never can it be? Never? Never can it be? And
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  Speaker 1: can he who smiles on all hear the wren with
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  Speaker 1: sorrows small, hear the small bird's grief and care, hear
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  Speaker 1: the woes that infants bear, and not sit beside the
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  Speaker 1: nest pouring pity in their breast, and not sit the
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  Speaker 1: cradle near, weeping tear on infants tier, and not sit
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  Speaker 1: both night and day wiping all our tears away. Oh no,
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  Speaker 1: never can it be. Never, never can it be. He
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  Speaker 1: doth give his joy to all. He becomes an infant small,
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  Speaker 1: he becomes a man of woe. He doth feel the
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  Speaker 1: sorrow too. Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, and
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  Speaker 1: thy maker is not by. Think not thou canst weep
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  Speaker 1: a tear, and thy Maker is not near. Oh, he
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  Speaker 1: gives to us his joy, that our grief he may destroy.
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  Speaker 1: Till our grief is fled and gone. He doth sit
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  Speaker 1: by us and moan. End of Songs of Innocence recording
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  Speaker 1: by Thomas Copeland. Songs of Experience from Songs of Innocence
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  Speaker 1: and Songs of Experience by William Blake. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public Domain. Recording by Thomas Copeland. Introduction.
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  Speaker 1: Hear the voice of the bard who present past and
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  Speaker 1: future seas, whose ears have heard the Holy Word that
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  Speaker 1: walked among the ancient trees, hauling the lapsed soul and
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  Speaker 1: weeping in the evening dew that might control the starry
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  Speaker 1: pole and fallen, fallen light renew O Earth, O Earth return,
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  Speaker 1: arise from out the dewy grass. Night is worn and
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  Speaker 1: the morn rises from the slumbrous mass. Turn away no more?
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  Speaker 1: Why wilt thou turn away? The starry floor, the wat'ry
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  Speaker 1: shore is given thee till the break of day. Earth's answer.
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  Speaker 1: Earth rais'd up her head from the darkness, dread and drear,
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  Speaker 1: her light fled stony dread, and her locks cover'd with
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  Speaker 1: gray despair. Prisoned on watery shore, starry jealousy does keep
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  Speaker 1: my den cold and hoar weeping. O'er I hear the
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  Speaker 1: father of the ancient men, selfish father of men. Cruel jealous,
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  Speaker 1: selfish fear can delight chain'd in night the virgins of
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  Speaker 1: youth and morning bear? Does spring hide its joy when
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  Speaker 1: buds and blossoms grow? Does the sower so by night?
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  Speaker 1: Or the plowman in darkness plow? Break this heavy chain
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  Speaker 1: that does freeze my bones around selfish, vain eternal bane,
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  Speaker 1: that free love with bondage bound the clod and the pebble.
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  Speaker 1: Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath
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  Speaker 1: any care, but for another gives its ease and builds
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  Speaker 1: a heaven in hell's despair. So sung a little clod
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  Speaker 1: of clay trodden with the cattle's feet, but a pebble
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  Speaker 1: of the brook warbl'd out. These meters meet love seeketh
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  Speaker 1: only self to please, to bind another to its delight,
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  Speaker 1: joys in another's loss of ease, and builds a hell
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  Speaker 1: in heav'ns despite Holy Thursday? Is this a holy thing
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  Speaker 1: to see? In a rich and fruitful land? Babes reduced
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  Speaker 1: to misery, fed with cold and usureous hand? Is that
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  Speaker 1: trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy?
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  Speaker 1: And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty.
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  Speaker 1: And their sun does never shine, and their fields are
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  Speaker 1: bleak and bare, and their ways are fill'd with thorns.
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  Speaker 1: It is eternal winter there, For where'er the sun does shine,
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  Speaker 1: and where'er the rain does fall, Babe can never hunger there,
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  Speaker 1: nor poverty. The mind of all the little girl lost
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  Speaker 1: in futurity. I prophesy that the earth, from sleep grave,
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  Speaker 1: the sentence deep, shall arise and seek for her maker meet,
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  Speaker 1: and the desert wild become a garden mild in the
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  Speaker 1: southern clime, where the summer's prime never fades away, lovely
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  Speaker 1: like a lay. Seven summers o lovely like a toad.
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  Speaker 1: She had wander'd long, hearing wild bird's song. Sweet sleep,
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  Speaker 1: come to me underneath this tree, Do father, mother weep?
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  Speaker 1: Where can like a sleep? Lost in desert? Wild is
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  Speaker 1: your little child? How can like a sleep? If her
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  Speaker 1: mother weep, if her heart does ache, then let like awake.
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  Speaker 1: If my mother sleep like a shall not weep? Frowning,
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  Speaker 1: frowning night o'er this desert bright, Let thy moon arise
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  Speaker 1: while I close my eyes, sleeping like a lay, While
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  Speaker 1: the beasts of prey come from caverns deep view'd the
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  Speaker 1: maid asleep. The kingly lion stood, and the virgin view'd.
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  Speaker 1: Then he gambol'd round o'er the hallow'd drown'd leopards tigers
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  Speaker 1: play round her as she lay, while the lion old
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  Speaker 1: bow'd his mane of gold and her bosom neck, and
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  Speaker 1: upon her neck from his eyes a flame ruby tears
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  Speaker 1: there came, while the lioness loosed her slender dress and naked,
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  Speaker 1: they convey'd to caves the sleeping maid. The little girl
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  Speaker 1: found all the night in woe, like as parents go
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  Speaker 1: over valleys deep. While the deserts weep, tired and woe begone,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: hoarse with making moan, arm in arm. Seven days they
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: traced the desert ways. Seven knights they sleep among shadows,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: deep and dream they see their child starv'd in desert,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: wild pale, through pathless ways. The fancied image strays famish, weeping,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: weak with hollow, piteous shriek rising from unrest. The trembling
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: woman press'd with feet of weary woe. She could no
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: further go. In his arms he bore her arm'd with
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: sorrow sore, till before their way a couching lion lay,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: turning back was vain. Soon his heavy mane bore them
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to the ground. Then he stalk'd around, smelling to his prey.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: But their fears allay when he licks their hands, and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: silent by them, stands. They look upon his eyes, fill'd
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: with deep surprise and wondering. Behold a spirit armed in
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: gold on his head, a crown on his shoulders, Down
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: flowed his golden hair. Gone was all their care. Follow me,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: he said, weep not for the maid in my palace,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: deep like our lies asleep. Then they followed where the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: vision led, and saw their sleeping child among tigers wild
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to this day they dwell in a lonely dell. Nor
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: fear the wolvish howl, nor the lions growl. The chimney sweeper,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a little black thing among the snow, crying weep, weep
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: in notes of woe? Where are thy? Father? And mother?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Say they are both gone up to the church to pray.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Because I was happy upon the heath and smiled among
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the winter's snow, they clothed me in the clothes of death,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and taught me to sing the notes of woe. And
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: because I am happy and dance and sing, they think
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: they have done me no injury, and are gone to
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: praise God and his priest and King, who made up
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a heaven of our misery. Nurses song. When the voices
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: of children are heard on the green, and whisperings are
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: in the day, the days of my youth rise fresh
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in my mind. My face turns green and pale. Then
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: come home, my children. The sun has gone down, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the dews of night arise. Your spring and your day
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: are wasted in play, and your winter and night in disguise.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: The sick rose, O rose, thou art sick. The invisible
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: worm that flies in the night in the howling storm
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: has found out thy bed of crimson joy and his
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: dark secret love? Does thy life destroy the fly? Little fly?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Thy summers play? My thoughtless hand has brushed away? Am
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: not I a fly like thee? For art not thou
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a man like me? For I dance and drink and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: sing till some blind hand shall brush my wing. If
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: thought is life and strength and breath, and the want
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of thought is death, then am I a happy fly?
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: If I live or if I die? The Angel I
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: dreamt a dream? What can it mean? And that I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: was a maiden queen guarded by an angel, mild, witless
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: woe was ne'er beguiled. And I wept both night and day.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And he wiped my tears away. And I wept both
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: day and night, and hid from him My heart's delight'd.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: So he took his wings and fled. Then the morn
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: blushed rosy red. I dried my tears and arm'd my
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: fears with ten thousand shields and spears. Soon my angel
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: came again. I was arm'd. He came in vain, for
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the time of youth was fled, and gray hairs were
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: on my head. The tiger tiger tiger burning bright in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: could frame thy fearful simatri in? What distant deeps or
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On What wings
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: And what shoulder? And what art could twist the sinews
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: what dread hand? And what dread feet? What the hammer?
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: When the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: with their tears, did he smile his work to see?
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Did he who made the lamb make thee tiger? Tiger
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: burning bright in the forests of the night? What immortal
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: hand or I dare frame thy fearful Simatriy? My pretty
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: rose tree, A flower was offer'd to me, such a
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: flower as may never bore. But I said, I've a
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: pretty rose tree, and I pass'd the sweet flow all.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Then I went to my pretty rose tree to tend
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: her by day and by night. But my rose turn'd
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: away with jealousy, and her thorns for my only delight,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Ah Sunflower, Ah sunflower, weary of time, who countest the
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: steps of the sun, seeking after that sweet golden clime,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: where the traveler's journey is done, where the youth pined
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: away with desire, and the pale virgin, shrouded in snow,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: arise from their graves and aspire where my sunflower wishes
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to go. The lily, the modest rose, puts forth a thorn,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the humble sheep a threatening horn, while the lily white
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: shall in love delight, nor a thorn, nor a threat
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: stain her beauty bright. The garden of love. I went
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to the garden of love and saw what I never
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: had seen. A chapel was built in the midst where
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I used to play on the green. And the gates
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: of this chapel were shut, and thou shalt not writ
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: over the door. So I turned to the garden of
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: love that so many sweet flowers bore, and I saw
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: it was filled with graves and tombstones where flowers should be,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: binding with briars my joys and desires. The little vagabond,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: dear mother, dear mother. The church is cold, but the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: ale house is healthy and pleasant and warm. Besides, I
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: can tell where I am used well. Such usage in
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: heaven will never do well. But if at the church
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: they would give us some ale and a pleasant fire,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: our souls to regale, we'd sing and we'd pray all
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the livelong day. Nor ever once wish from the church
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to stray, then the parson might preach and drink and sing,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and we'd be as happy as birds in the spring
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and modest. Dame Lurch, who was always at church, would
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: not have banty children, nor fasting, nor birch. And God
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: like a father rejoicing to see his children as pleasant
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and happy as he, would have no more quarrel with
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the devil or the barrel, but kiss him and give
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: him both drink and apparel. London, I wander through each
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: chartered street near where the Chartered Thames does flow a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: mark in every face. I meet marks of weakness, marks
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: of woe in every cry of every man, in every
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: infant's cry of fear, in every voice, in every ban
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the mind forg'd manacles. I hear how the chimney sweepers cry,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: every blackening church appalls, and the hapless soldier's sigh runs
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in blood down palace walls, but most through midnight streets.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I hear how the youthful harlot's curse blasts the new
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: born infant's tear and blights with plagues the marriage. Hearse
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the human abstract pity would be no more if we
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: did not make somebody poor, and mercy no more could
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: be if all were as happy as we, And mutual
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: fear brings peace till the selfish loves increase. Then cruelty
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: knits a snare and spreads his baits with care. He
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: sits down with holy fears and waters the ground with tears.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Then humility takes its root underneath his foot. Soon spreads
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the dismal shade of mystery over his head. And the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: caterpillar and fly feed on the mystery eye, and it
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: bears the fruit of deceit ruddy and sweet to eat,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and the raven his nest has made in its thickest shade.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: The gods of the earth and sea sought through nature
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to find this tree, but their search was all in vain.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: There grows one in the human brain, infant sorrow. My
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: mother groaned, my father wept into the dangerous world. I
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: leapt helpless, naked, piping loud like a fiend, hid in
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a cloud, struggling in my father's hands, striving against my
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: swaddling bands. Bound and weary, I thought best to sulk
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: upon my mother's breast, a poisoned tree. I was angry
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: with my friend. I told my wrath. My wrath did end.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I was angry with my foe. I told it not.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: My wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: night and morning, with my tears. And I sunnered it
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: with smiles and with soft, deceitful wiles. And it grew
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: both day and night till it bore an apple bright,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and my foe beheld it shine, and he knew that
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: it was mine. And into my garden stole when the
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: night had veil'd the pole. In the morning, glad I
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: see my foe outstretch'd beneath the tree, A little boy lost.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Not love's another, as novenerates another soul. Nor is it
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: possible to thought a greater than itself to know? And Father?
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: How can I love you or any of my brothers more?
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I love you like the little bird that picks up
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: crumbs around the door the priest sat by and hurt
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the child. In trembling zeal, he seized his hair, he
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: led him by his little coat, and all admired his
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: priestly care, and standing on the altar high lo What
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: a fiend is here, said he, one who sets reason
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: up for judge of our most holy mystery. The weeping
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: child could not be heard. The weeping parents wept in vain.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: They stripped him to his little shirt, and bound him
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: in an iron chain, and burned him in a holy
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: place where many had been burned before. The weeping parents
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: wept in vain. Are such things done? On Albion's shore?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: A little girl lost? Children of the future age reading
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: this indignant page, know that in a former time, love,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: sweet love, was thought a crime. In the age of gold,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: free from winter's cold, youth and maiden bright to the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Holy light, Naked in the sunny beam's delight, Once a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: youthful pair fill'd with softest care, met in garden bright,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: where the Holy light had just removed the curtains of
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the night. There, in rising day, on the grass they play.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Parents were far, strangers came not near, and the maiden
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: soon forgot her fear, tired with kisses sweet. They agreed
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: to meet. When the silent sleep waves o'er heavens deep,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and the weary, tired wanderers weep to her father white
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: came the maiden, bright, but his loving look like the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Holy Book, all her tender limbs with terror shook, ona
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: pale and weak to thy father, speak, Oh the trembling fear,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Oh the dismal care that shakes the blossoms of my
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: hoary hair. A divine image, cruelty has a human heart
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and jealousy, a human face, terror, the human form, divine
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and secrecy the human dress. The human dress is forged iron,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the human form a fiery forge. The human face a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: furnace seal'd the human heart its hungry gorge, a cradle,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a sleep, sleep, beauty, bright, dreaming in the joys of night. Sleep,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Sleep in thy sleep, little sorrow, Sit and weep, sweet babe,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: in thy face, soft desires. I can trace secret joys
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: and secret smiles, little pretty infant whiles, as thy softest limbs,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I feel smiles as of the morning steal o'er thy
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: cheek and o'er thy breast, where thy little heart doth
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: rest o the cunning wiles that creep in thy little
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: heart asleep. When thy little heart doth wake, then the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: dreadful light shall break. The schoolboy I love to rise
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: in a summer morn, when the birds sing on every tree,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the distant huntsmen whine his horn, and the skylark sings
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: with me. Oh, what sweet company. But to go to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: school in a summer morn, Oh, it drives all joy
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: away under a cruel eye. Outworn, the little one spend
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the day in sighing and dismay. Ah. Then at times I,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: drooping sit and spend many an anxious hour. Nor in
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: my book can I take delight, nor sit in learning's
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: bower worn through with the dreary shower. How can the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: bird that is born for joy sin in a cage
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and sing? How can a child, when fears annoy, but
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: droop his tender wing and forget his youthful spring? Oh,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: father and mother, if buds are nipp'd and blossoms blown away,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and if the tender plants are stripp'd of their joy
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: in the springing day by sorrow and care's dismay, how
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: shall the summer arise in joy, or the summer fruits appear?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy or bless
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the mellowing year, when the blasts of winter appear to tears,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: A whate'er is born of mortal birth, must be consumed
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: with the earth to rise from generation free? Then what
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: have I to do with thee? The sexes sprung from
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: shame and pride blow'd in the morn and evening died,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: But mercy changeth death into sleep. The sexes rose to work,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and weep, thou, mother of my mortal part? With cruelty
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: didst mold my heart? And with false self deceiving tears?
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Didst blind my nostrils, eyes and ears? Didst close my
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: tongue in senseless clay, and me to mortal life betray
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the death of Jesus set me free? Then what have
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I to do with thee? The voice of the ancient bard,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: youth of delight, Come hither and see the opening morn
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: image of truth new born doubt is fled and clouds
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: of reason, dark disputes and artful Teasin Polly is an
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: endless maze, tangled roots perplex her ways. How many have
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: fallen there? They stumble all night over bones of the dead,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and feel they know not what but care and wish
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: to lead others when they should be led. End of
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the Songs of Experience. End of the Songs of Innocence
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and the Songs of Experience by William Blake. Recording by
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Thomas Copeland.