For much of history the best stories were poems. Poetry displayed skill, clarity of mind, and insight. Some even used it to show the distinction between classes and worlds. There are entire books of it in the Bible, largely ignored for its poetic value because we are reading in translation.
And so we have castigated it as a trite and angsty form, leaving it to die alongside our own shriveled hearts.
So we need to start at the beginning.
These are poems to train children to love poetry.
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on, Tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a Gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of light
Are sands upon the Red sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.
I don't particularly love the work of Songs of Innocence and Experience. Sentimentalism should be spewed out - both the kind that makes little boys lisp lamblike and the kind that reflects on mangled angel curls blacked by soot.
But Blake has a knack for catching an image and justaposing it. He just does not always juxtapose towards reality, but sentiment.
Today's piece is one I had never heard until browsing through Harmon's 500. The imagery is Byronic and putting it next to our scientific achievements accents modern failure.
This is how I know we can get along just fine even though we disagree on sentiment - he understands Rousseau is the worst.
Every dragonslayer should know in their bones Rousseau is personally responsible for the majority of bad ideas in the 21st century.
Hear his name and spit.
Further Up and Further In
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