Blake General

[Anonymous No.21976456]

What does this mean?

Anything Blake goes

[Anonymous No.21976473]

This poem makes me cry
If only the speaker's parents did their duty

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

[Anonymous No.21976498]

>>21976456
This is just my interpretation of it based off of reading his entire work in a single volume casually over the last month. I think he is saying that those reliant on wit and cunning pat themselves on the back where those who really on strength and character praise a higher power for their lot in life. Maybe, what the fuck do I know aside from the usual use of fox as a symbol of cunning and lion as symbol of noble strength.

[Anonymous No.21976573]

>>21976473
>mfw

>>21976498
Yeah, that's how I took it. I might just quit my job with nothing lined up and just YOLO like a lion, rely on God. I'm tempted

[Anonymous No.21976579]

>>21976573
>mfw

[Anonymous No.21977274]

Bump

[Anonymous No.21977284]

>>21976498
Of course they do. Because the strong are strong out of a luck of the draw. The cunning are too, but they’re just smart enough to realize it.

[Anonymous No.21977293]

>>21976456
Anything blake blows

[Anonymous No.21978221]

>>21976456
The fox is intelligent and has to be, because he is not as capable of a hunter and would have a hard time fending for himself
The lion is physically gifted and all that he can hope to achieve is already decided upon, he is not capable of manufacturing his fate, and because he is beautiful and bold, he can usually give himself to God.

[Anonymous No.21978258]

>>21977293
hush your mouth, kike.

[Anonymous No.21978285]

>>21977293
Awesome alliteration, anon.

[Anonymous No.21978393]

>>21976473
listen buddy the chimneys ain't gonna sweep themselves. it's called the free market okay?

[Anonymous No.21978404]

>>21976473
also what the fuck
>harm
>warm
they don't rhyme. you can't even slant them so they rhyme. this faggot chose the gayest and easiest non-job in the world, to come up with RHYMING COUPLETS and he can't even bother to do that correctly

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21978433]

>>21976473
absolutely love this poem I go back to it often, have you ever heard of Greg brown? He sings multiple of Blake’s poetry sometimes to very good effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJrCO153LdM

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21978454]

>>21978404
They’re pararhymes, I think the effect is still musical and pretty beautiful, dark and work, harm and warm, both fit the heaviness the children are suffering and the promise of freedom, I think Greg brown’s treatment above shows how it really does work when said.

[Anonymous No.21978462]

>>21976456
Blake looks like a combo of Kiefer Sutherland and Toby Jones.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21978463]

Wrote this poem on the anniversary of Blake’s death.

A crown for one in hell
is there a crown in hell for you,
who praised a Christ he never knew?
who knew the man as man not God,
who longed to walk with arm in arm?

do echos echo on the green,
where song bird songed the evergreens?
in ever peace and deeper peace,
did dawns end dawn a sweet release?


pipin pipin William Blake,
through the branches filled with day,
seen the angel hills and planes,
singing with the million flames,
tigers with vermilion brains,
crystal lakes and rills in shade,
children lay in Christian Grace,
Christian lays they give him praise,
given way to wisdom’s way,
skilled to say so skilled in praise,
pipin’ pipin William Blake.

with woe and joy to know the voice,
each soul goes off to make a joyful noise,
each laid to rest and rise in light,
in linen’s pure and dyed to white,

remembering a little song,
some sing among the choir throngs,
eternal embers of a fire gone,
to blaze before his face so strong,

“Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

O He gives to us His joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.”

pipin pipin William Blake,
through the branches filled with day,
seen the angel hills and planes,
singing with the million flames,
tigers with vermilion brains,
crystal lakes and rills in shade,
children lay in Christian Grace,
Christian lays they give him praise,
given way to wisdom’s way,
skilled to say so skilled in praise,
pipin’ pipin William Blake.

[Anonymous No.21978480]

>>21978454
I usually like your takes Frater but I have heard this explanation repeated for my whole life and I'm sorry it has always sounded like bullshit to me. The English language has long and short vowels and they sound totally different. If you are writing a poem with rhyming couplets then you need to use the same vowel sounds or else they don't rhyme. I really do think it is a case of poets just being lazy and people making excuses to go along with it.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.21978527]

>>21978480
I agree it doesn’t sound as good, but pararhyme is specifically about repetition of consonants, on one hand you can totally account it laziness or sacrificing sound for meaning, but there’s also the argument that it’s a twisting of the sound for an intentional melodic purpose, this is the take Swinburne has when Blake interrupts his stellar quality song with stuff like this, personally I think it’s probably likely given the care in the meter and narrative, that there was both a coherence of sound and sense reason, but also to further the narrative.

But back on pararhyme specifically, I think the repeated consonance still has a noticeable and nice effect, in my own practice it I’ve found when layered with normal rhymes it can have a very wild feeling jittery quality, in a good way!

[Anonymous No.21978678]

>>21978404
they rhymed in Blake's day

[Anonymous No.21979079]

>>21978404
This post and its replies must be one big inside joke. These two words rhyme just fine.

[Anonymous No.21979089]

>>21978404
This >>21978678 is probably true; Coleridge rhymes "far" with "war" in Kubla Khan, indicating that the sound change /wɑɹ/ > /wɔɹ/ most likely hadn't happened yet.

[Anonymous No.21979096]

>>21979089
These two words also rhyme naturally...

[Anonymous No.21979105]

>>21979096
Where are you from? I'm from the USA, and they definitely don't rhyme for me. Here's a vocaroo of me reading the relevant lines from Kubla Khan: https://voca.ro/1gLFL70yTjNE

[Anonymous No.21979161]

>>21979105
I suppose it's more of a near rhyme but am German so not a native speaker naturally. Perhaps my pronunciation is off. In fact, I think your example works as a reasonably close rhyme.

[Anonymous No.21979267]

>Old Nobodaddy up aloft farted & belchd & coughd
>And said I love hanging & drawing & quartering
>Every bit as well as war & slaughtering.

[Anonymous No.21979314]

Poets need to be put in camps and taught the value of real work. I can't imagine such an easy job. Poet. Just write some words on a page and throw a few rhymes in. Big fucking whoop.

[Anonymous No.21980168]

Bump

[Anonymous No.21981445]

>>21976456
>some are born for sweet delight
Some are born for endless night
Why_even_live.jpg

[Anonymous No.21981610]

>>21976456
Legend:
God provides for Himself.

[Anonymous No.21982257]

>>21976456
He's probably referencing archetypes from Aesop's fables.
The lion is king so divine by nature, the fox is wiley and must provide for himself.

[Anonymous No.21982836]

>>21976456
The divinely attuned, the geniuses, the overmen, those who see the mystery, they do not "work", they receive gifts from God.


There are a few more aphorisms of his which illustrate this:

"The cistern contains: the fountain overflows."

"The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow."

[Anonymous No.21982939]

>>21977284
>>21978221
>it's all about le genetic determinism
This is the worldview for mediocre and pathetic people
The lion represents bravery and forthright strength, the fox represents cunning and cowardly wit. One who goes forth regardless of self-preservation, he leaves it to fate and/or God. The fox represents the sly coward who wants to win, but wants to minimize all risk to himself and his reputation.

[Anonymous No.21982955]

>>21978404
now read it in a bri'ish accent dumbass

[Anonymous No.21982978]

>>21976456
Love this guy. Just getting into his arts now. Strange and against the cultural norm but very interesting.

[Anonymous No.21983819]

>Children of the future age
>Reading this indignant page
>Know that in a former time
>Love, sweet love, was thought a crime

[Anonymous No.21983845]

>>21976473
>There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

bruh

[Anonymous No.21984081]

>>21976456
I have a collection of this dudes stuff, more or less all of it from the poems to his religious writings.
Should I bite the bullet and dive in?

[Anonymous No.21984111]

>>21976456
It means he is an idiot. Don't care if it's an analogy it's wrong.

[Anonymous No.21984160]

>>21976456
If you can get access to this it might help
>The Bible on William Blake's Proverbs of Hell (An Interpetive Gloss by Citation to The King James Version)
>Michael Pantazakos
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/lvplr23&div=18&id=&page=

[Anonymous No.21984174]

It'd say the context would be Aesop's fables, the bible, and Reynard the Fox, either directly or through Chaucer's The Nun's Priest Tale.

[Anonymous No.21985264]

>>21982939
>>21977284
You are both wrong because you both have weird concepts of what regal strength is. Its not just big muscles and lifting heavy thing. It is about how you cary the weight of life. The cunning pat themselves on the back because they see their use of wit as a way to do battle against the adversity life throws at them. The vain strong pat themselves on the back because they view their physical strength as something they cultivated to fight the adversity that life throws at them. The regal strong thank god for throwing adversity at them and making them strong. Taking the adversity as the good motive force that pushed them toward their strength. The other two curse the fact that there is adversity and see its overcoming as a chore, congratulating themselves on being able to put up with it in such and such a way.

[Anonymous No.21985275]

>>21984081
Yeah start with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

[Anonymous No.21985986]

>>21976456
> The vision of Christ that thou dost see
>Is my vision‟s greatest enemy.
>Thine has a great hook nose like thine; >Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Holy shit

[Anonymous No.21986004]

>frater gyp shitting up a Blake thread
Nothing is sacred