Auguries of innocence

The following are extracts from William Blake's Auguries of innocence. This is surely one of the best pieces I have come accross yet. I guess writing poetry is similar to the perennial economic agenda - To get more from less. In poetry's case, it is the problem of conveying more with less words.

I guess that follows with not only poets but also many others - even mathematicians! Someone happened to say of Coleridge that he wrote little poetry but that of the highest order. I guess of the great german mathematician Riemann, they say the same. His memoirs could be condensed to 200 pages but they have kept mathematicians busy for more than 200 years.

This is the first verse of William Blake's masterpiece:

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.

The next two come from somewhere in between:

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

And finally the last two verses which again are knockers!

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.