C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

William Blake

Ah, sunflower, weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the sun,

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the traveller’s journey is done.

I have mental joys and mental health,

Mental friends and mental wealth,

I’ve a wife that I love and that loves me;

I’ve all but riches bodily.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe;

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest

And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

O thou who passest through our valleys in

Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat

That flames from their large nostrils! Thou, O Summer,

Oft pitchest here thy golden tent, and oft

Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld

With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:

The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark,

Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

Since all the riches of this world

May be gifts from the devil and earthly kings,

I should suspect that I worshipped the devil

If I thanked my God for worldly things.

Sweet babe, in thy face

Soft desires I can trace,

Secret joys and secret smiles,

Little pretty infant wiles.

Sweet sleep, with soft down

Weave thy brows an infant crown!

Sweet sleep, angel mild,

Hover o’er my happy child.

The grave is heaven’s golden gate,

And rich and poor around it wait;

O Shepherdess of England’s fold,

Behold this gate of pearl and gold!

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