“Poetry reflects on the quality of life, on us as we are in process on this earth, in our lives, in our relationships, in our communities.”~Adrienne RIch

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.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Whoa, talk about manipulative bitterness! The entire poem, and the one from earlier this week, both remind me of House, a TV show that Artiste Daughter and I were watching just this evening. One of the themes of this season on House has been the balance between honesty/self-acceptance and kindness/love. Dr. House harbors bitterness and pain, and when he tries to become a more loving and giving person, he’s still manipulative. He gives gifts in hopes that “karma” will bring the good back to him.

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Impossible? Yes, absolutely. Blake knew it. You know it. And I do, too. On our own, we all produce poison trees of wrath full of poisonous apples for those we consider our enemies. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law.”

“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. “~W.B. Yeats

So Blake and the pebble would have been proponents of what is today called “tough love,” I suppose, or perhaps the sort of romantic lustful love that is glorified in so many movies and books? I don’t really get the pebble’s perspective: how does real love ever build a hell? But, then again, I’m not sure I believe that the clod has it right either. Yes, Love is giving and forgiving and serving, but there is a place for honesty and acknowledgement of one’s own needs even while serving and thinking of others. Jesus calls us to self-denial, and we are told in the Bible that “whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” (Luke 17:33) But Matthew adds the important words “for My sake,” (Mt. 10:39) implying that self-abnegation for its own sake or even for the sake of others alone is not what we are called to practice. We are called to deny self in order to follow Christ, and God himself will provide for all our needs.

A focus on glorifying Jesus makes all the difference.

“People should like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if poets wrote it.”~Wallace Stevens

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake was an odd sort of genius. He was a poet, a painter, and a printmaker. He did not attend school as a child and was educated at home by his mother. His father bought him some drawings of Greek antiquities, and Blake began to copy them. Then, he took art lessons. Then, he was apprenticed for seven years, from age 14 to 21, to an engraver.

Blake revered the Bible, but had his own idiosyncratic and probably heretical interpretation of it. He hated the Church of England. Blake and his wife Catherine practiced nudity (in their own garden), and he may have proposed that he bring a concubine into their marriage bed, although there’s no evidence that he actually did so. He claimed throughout his life that he saw visions of God and of angels, among other things, and believed that he was personally instructed by Archangels in his work.

I nevertheless have hope that he placed his trust in Christ in spite of his sometimes odd ideas.

George Richmond on William Blake’s death:
He died … in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ — Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten’d and he burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven.

“All slang is a metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.”~G.K. Chesterton

Neoneocon, Ten Poems to Memorize in School: “The dialect is almost impossible, I know. But with an explanation of the meaning of the obscure, archaic words, I think it’s a poem that will appeal to kids of that age. At any rate, it’s a masterpiece, going from the cute and cuddly (Burns almost overdoes it but stops right at the brink) to the profound.”

Cindy at Ordo Amoris: “Burns will always be my first love. He rhymes in dialect.”

Full title: To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785.

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering pattle.

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An’ fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s win’s ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turned out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

If you need a translation, you can get that here. Or just listen to it over and over and let that Scots accent and dialect wash over you until you get the sense of it.