William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
The Mental TravellerWilliam Blake (17571827)
I
A land of men and women too;
And heard and saw such dreadful things
As cold earth-wanderers never knew.
That was begotten in dire woe;
Just as we reap in joy the fruit
Which we in bitter tears did sow.
He’s given to a woman old,
Who nails him down upon a rock,
Catches his shrieks in cups of gold.
She pierces both his hands and feet,
She cuts his heart out at his side,
To make it feel both cold and heat.
Just as a miser counts his gold;
She lives upon his shrieks and cries,
And she grows young as he grows old.
And she becomes a virgin bright;
Then he rends up his manacles,
And binds her down for his delight.
Just as a husbandman his mould;
And she becomes his dwelling-place
And garden fruitful seventy-fold.
Wand’ring round an earthly cot,
Full-fillèd all with gems and gold
Which he by industry had got.
The rubies and pearls of a love-sick eye,
The countless gold of the aching heart,
The martyr’s groan and lover’s sigh.
He feeds the beggar and the poor
And the wayfaring traveller:
For ever open is his door.
They make the roofs and walls to ring,
Till from the fire on the hearth
A little female babe does spring;
And gems and gold, that none his hand
Dares stretch to touch her baby form,
Or wrap her in his swaddling band.
If young or old, or rich or poor;
They soon drive out the agèd host,
A beggar at another’s door.
Until some other take him in;
Oft blind and age-bent, sore distrest,
Until he can a maiden win.
The poor man takes her in his arms;
The cottage fades before his sight,
The garden and its lovely charms.
For the eye altering alters all;
The senses roll themselves in fear,
And the flat earth becomes a ball;
A desert vast without a bound,
And nothing left to eat or drink,
And a dark desert all around.
The bread and wine of her sweet smile,
The wild game of her roving eye,
Does him to infancy beguile;
Younger and younger every day;
And on the desert wild they both
Wander in terror and dismay.
Her fear plants many a thicket wild;
While he pursues her night and day,
By various arts of love beguil’d;
Till the wide desert planted o’er
With labyrinths of wayward love,
Where roam the lion, wolf, and boar.
And she a weeping woman old.
Then many a lover wanders here;
The sun and stars are nearer roll’d;
To all who in the desert roam;
Till many a city there is built,
And many a pleasant shepherd’s home.
Terror strikes thro’ the region wide:
They cry ‘The Babe! the Babe is born!’
And flee away on every side.
His arm is wither’d to its root;
Lions, boars, wolves, all howling flee,
And every tree does shed its fruit.
Except it be a woman old;
She nails him down upon the rock,
And all is done as I have told.