[771] The Divine Image

Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart is hungry Gorge.

	-- William Blake

Blake is in full Apocalypse Mode here, all fire and fury and righteous
indignation. In a lesser poet it would be pretentious; in Blake, it's
amazingly, indisputably _right_.

thomas.

[Et cetera]

There are poets who are inextricably linked with particular forms and
metres; for example, Longfellow [1], Yeats [2] and yes, William Blake [3].

[1] See the often celebrated and even more often parodied "Song of
Hiawatha":
 By the shore of Gitchie Gumee,
 By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
 At the doorway of his wigwam,
 In the pleasant Summer morning,
 Hiawatha stood and waited.
	-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Hiawatha's Departure", Poem #362
See Poem #559, "The Modern Hiawatha", by George A. Strong, for a fairly nice
example of a Hiawatha parody.

[2] See, especially, the third and final section of Auden's elegy "In Memory
of W. B. Yeats" (Poem #50) for an excellent tribute in the form that the
Master made his own.

[3] Many of the "Songs of Innocence and Experience" are written in the same
metre as today's poem, as is "Auguries of Innocence". See
http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/blake02.html for the complete set
of the former, and Poem #368 on the Minstrels website for the latter.

[Minstrels Links]

Other poems by William Blake:
Poem #26, "Jerusalem"
Poem #66, "The Tyger"
Poem #97, "The Fly"
Poem #368, "Auguries of Innocence"
Poem #546, "The Sick Rose"

[Administrivia]

The email I sent a few hours ago titled "The Month in Comments: March 2001"
should have been titled "The Month in Comments: April 2001". An entirely
pardonable lapse, caused solely by this reviewer's occasional ignorance of
day, month, and, indeed, year.

As you may have noticed, there has been a preponderance of guest poem
submissions recently (and a corresponding paucity of commentary from Martin
and myself). This is because we've both been travelling and/or busy; we hope
to return you to your scheduled service soon.

From: "JeffKathMerrick" <oakchase@>

There are 2  distinctive poems by William Blake on the topic of divine
image.  The 8-line poem on your web page is mistitled.  It should be:  A
Divine Image   not    The Divine Image.
Both were written by Blake.  Research further and you'll find your
error.  Good Luck!
   Kathy Merrick
   English Teacher

From: 96ORJD-DYER <96ORJD@>

This poem is titled "A Divine Image", not "The Divine Image". The latter
title is a poem in "Songs of Innocence", not the poem shown here which is
from "Songs of Experience". Just thought you might like to know.

From: "Alison MacDermott" <am003e7929@>

This poem is not titled "The Divine Image."  It is titled "A divine
image" and is the counterpart of another poem, from Songs of Innocence,
entitled "The Divine Image."