Blake's Progress Poem by Sheena Blackhall

'My mother groaned, my father wept,
Into the dangerous world I leapt.'
An 18th century child of fate,
Prophetic, destined to create

'To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour'

So said the luminary when
He came into the world of men
Born in Soho, schooled five years,
Grew to engrave celestial spheres

'Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight'

From four years old, his visions came
God peeped through his window pane
At eight he saw a sacred tree
With wingèd angels, heavenly

And sometimes, in a field of hay
Angels would greet him mystically
With his dead brother, William talked
They'd meet and discourse as he walked

And Wollstonecraft the feminist
Shared views of this strong anarchist
Free love. Although they never met
Their thinking filled the same mind-set

Blake's Catherine, wed by holy rite,
Was taught by him to read and write
Inside Westminster Abbey, Blake
Heard ghostly chants by monk, prelate

One of his final coins he spent
Buying a pencil, on he went
With his last sketch, his weeping wife
Heard him sing psalms, then quit his life

Post mortem, some friends burned his work
For heresy, or sexual quirk
Who gave them leave to censure Blake?
Such judgement on his work to make?

'Can this be love which drinks another
As a sponge does drink up water? '

Freud, Jung, his paintings did adore
Nash, Ginsberg, Huxley many more
Poets and artists, give him praise
The man who trod unearthly ways