Ars Poetica
And when we were but children of our own paradise,
Did we not hear such lovely sounds as pierce the night
When we waked to see the stars and tasted dewdrops
That grant innocence to leaves and murder the night?
And when we were but children tired in our youth,
Did we not close our weary lids to such soft threnodies
That were sung at the funerals of wakefulness
Which is reborn to kill sleep and its silent melodies?
And we are but children who, not missing the innocence,
Must make our fingers dance as we spill liquid sense,
And search with twice twofold eyes tucked deep in our skulls
To make sense flow, we look in and out of those hyaline hulls.
Ring out celebration, have we not grown?
Still young, hardly begun, we harbour that very innocence
That within the slightest fledglings are sown,
And that we did reap when we took flight into experience.
And then we did not know, did we, this game called creation?
In which we dance with ancient gods and with their children,
As we hunt through inward streams and lakes for inspiration.
Those innocent, eternal seasons, we knew this not then!
And did we not yearn in our youngest reveries
That there was a game that we had yet not played?
But of all our revelations and our discoveries,
This one has not been at the slightest delayed!
Tell me, O tell me, that Orpheus as a child,
Did he not wish to put to rhyme and song
All the beauties and glories of the wild?
And though in childhood we oft times are wrong-
Isn’t innocence of words but experience compiled?
And if I was questioned what I have believed,
I would say that all are born poets in the womb,
And those from whom life has now been relieved,
And before they have composed they are in the tomb,
In death’s endless leisure, their powers will bloom,
And poets they shall be in their innocent doom.
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bravo.....yes, Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' did help with the flow of thoughts and no, there are absolutely no lines copied.........mostly because i've never read the Songs. but i did read Harold Bloom's explanation and comments about them.
if Blake himself has stepped into the poem it would be subconscious because i did read 'The Mental Traveller' and 'The Crystal Cabinet' both of which i thought even Freud would not understand without a guide about Orcs and Urizens............sheesh.
Thanks for the comments all.
Blast, I'm not a poetry critic either, but I must say that that was extremely beautiful. You have a really nice gift.
I love that!
I won't lie, do you know what my first reaction to this poem was?
. Well, well, well done, if you're able to convince me it was written by William Blake then how much higher praise do you want?
"This must be plagarised, it sounds too mch like Blake..."
so I Googled a few lines, because I couldn't believe you were capable of plagarism like that, and it appears it's your own
Just a question, was it inspired by him? What with the innocence and experience? Because if it was, it's still wonderful. Seriously, well done... I'm not a poet crit so I can't give you much help...
You have great talent. I applaud you! *great applause*
~GryphonFledgling