The obscurity and apparent heterodoxy...
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The obscurity and apparent heterodoxy of much of the work of the English poet, artist and visionary William Blake prevented him in life from attaining the sort of celebrity he enjoys today. Filled with a deep and powerful vision of a loving God, he saw a world around him which mouthed the words of love, but whose actions opposed God's ways. His best-known work is the hymn "Jerusalem," which, set to Hubert Parry's stirring melody, became almost a national anthem for England, but which Blake intended as a polemic against the greed and inhumanity of the industrial revolution. Another poem contrasting God's love and the way the world "loves" is found in "Songs of Innocence," published in 1794:
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet;
"Love seeketh only self to please
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
-- Walker
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet;
"Love seeketh only self to please
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
-- Walker
