Getting Started with Primary Sources: William Blake

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
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.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secrecy the human dress.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
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.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
My mother groaned, my father wept! Into the dangerous world I leapt, Helpless, naked, piping loud, Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England's mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On England's pleasant pastures seen?

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
‘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.’

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Little Lamb who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
O rose, thou art sick; The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
He was naked, and saw man naked, and from the centre of his own crystal. To him there was no more reason why Swedenborg should be absurd than Locke. He accepted Swedenborg, and eventually rejected him, for reasons of his own. He approached everything with a mind unclouded by current opinions. There was nothing of the superior person about him. This makes him terrifying.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
His eye was the finest I ever saw: brilliant, not roving, clear and intent; yet susceptible; it flashed with genius or melted with tenderness. It could be terrible. Cunning and falsehood quailed under it, but it was never busy with them. It pierced them and turned away.

In The Bridgeman Art Library
plate 99 from 'Jerusalem', 1804-20 (etching printed in orange with pen and w/c on paper), Blake, William (1757-1827) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA

In The Bridgeman Art Library
plate 18 from 'Jerusalem', 1804-20 (relief etching with pen and w/c on paper), Blake, William (1757-1827) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA

In The Bridgeman Art Library
plate 35 from 'Jerusalem' (Bentley Copy E) 1804-20 (etching with pen and w/c on paper), Blake, William (1757-1827) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA

In The Bridgeman Art Library
plate 6 from 'For Children. The Gates of Paradise', 1793 (engraving), Blake, William (1757-1827) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA

In The Bridgeman Art Library
Book of Urizen; Blake's retelling of the Creation of Eve in the Creation of Enitharmon, 'And left a round globe of blood, Trembling upon the Void', 1794 (colour-printed relief etching), Blake, William (1757-1827) / Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
The Ancient of Days, an illustration by the English poet and painter William Blake for his poem ‘Europe, a Prophecy’.