Watch now (53 mins) | An introduction to Blake given by Andy Wilson at St Luke’s Community Centre, Islington, London, on 24th Nov 2021, for the residents around Bunhill Fields, where Blake is buried.
I enjoyed this. What did Blake mean when he said, "I give you the end of a golden string. Simply wind it into a ball and it will lead you in at Jerusalem's Gate?" Blake is my connection with the past. He connects directly back to Milton and to the Baroque mindset, which is an improvement over the modern mindset that most people already had in the last half of the 18th century in London. In Blake's day, most people were already living in Hell. Ulro...the masses suffer from single vision and Newton's sleep. Whoever wants to engage the old symbols may. Homer and his followers (through Virgil) were initiates in a secret society of people who understood poetic allegory. Ovid was not a part of that original school. He was the first feminist and his work represents a distinct break with Homeric tradition. He was not initiated into their boy's club. He was there to tear down dilapidated thought structures and discard tired abused symbols. Ovid is the end of the cycle. So, Blake leads back to Milton, but if you hold onto Blake's golden thread it leads back farther...to Spenser...to Dante...to Virgil. Finally, it leads the way back to Homer, and to the beginning of poetry and timeless wisdom. This whole line is allegorical. The symbols of the Ancient poets are still sitting there waiting for us to animate them once again. When you read Homer you're supposed to understand that you are Odysseus. If you don't understand the allegory, you're not doing it right. I forgot to say Bunyan, another important allegorical dissenter.
To Those Who Poison the Water
John Shane
Since you have not listened
to reason, and you do not hear
the voice of the people
clearly raised against
the folly of your action,
what hope is there
that you will hear
the cry of the Earth?
The tongueless song of water
echoes in your veins,
your flesh, your bones,
the rain speaks to you,
and streams and rivers sing
When the mind is still,
one may hear these things:
the voices of the thousand
life forms of the earth, the sky,
those that live above the surface
of the water and those
that live below
And when the mind is still,
one may know how all live
in subtle balance
in the flow
A mind that spins cannot
know the unity of all things,
and when such minds wield power
they do more damage
by the hour
Tampering with things
half understood
they bring evil where
they seek to do good
In my dark dream
I hear the creature terror
of all that will suffer
from these man-made errors:
fish and snake,
bullfrog and dragonfly,
bee and bird, beetle and toad,
I hear them all, I give them voice,
that you may hear their wordless cry
Wrigglers and scamperers,
crawlers and creepers,
the winged and the whiskered,
the feathered and the finned,
I hear them crying in this winter wind,
calling to you to stop this madness,
now, before it’s too late:
what you are doing to the natural world
will kill, and maim, and mutilate
Let your mind be silent,
even for a moment,
and you will know
that no thing is separate
from another
What kind of creature
has the right
to put poison
in the bloodstream
of all others?
© John Shane
Substack: The Way Of The Poet
I enjoyed this. What did Blake mean when he said, "I give you the end of a golden string. Simply wind it into a ball and it will lead you in at Jerusalem's Gate?" Blake is my connection with the past. He connects directly back to Milton and to the Baroque mindset, which is an improvement over the modern mindset that most people already had in the last half of the 18th century in London. In Blake's day, most people were already living in Hell. Ulro...the masses suffer from single vision and Newton's sleep. Whoever wants to engage the old symbols may. Homer and his followers (through Virgil) were initiates in a secret society of people who understood poetic allegory. Ovid was not a part of that original school. He was the first feminist and his work represents a distinct break with Homeric tradition. He was not initiated into their boy's club. He was there to tear down dilapidated thought structures and discard tired abused symbols. Ovid is the end of the cycle. So, Blake leads back to Milton, but if you hold onto Blake's golden thread it leads back farther...to Spenser...to Dante...to Virgil. Finally, it leads the way back to Homer, and to the beginning of poetry and timeless wisdom. This whole line is allegorical. The symbols of the Ancient poets are still sitting there waiting for us to animate them once again. When you read Homer you're supposed to understand that you are Odysseus. If you don't understand the allegory, you're not doing it right. I forgot to say Bunyan, another important allegorical dissenter.