★★★☆☆ Drivel with occasional brilliance

Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake

I have to begin with a disclaimer. Usually I read poetry very slowly, one or two poems a day. This gives me the time to savor it. However, I had surgery two days ago and brought William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience along to read while waiting for the surgeons to slice me open. It is possible that these are not the best conditions for appreciating Blake.

With that caveat, I was more disappointed than pleased by this volume of poetry. It consists mostly of drivel like this:

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

interrupted by occasional flashes of brilliance like this

O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

or this

The human dress is forgèd iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.

The drivel was more concentrated in the front half, Songs of Innocence and the good stuff more in Songs of Experience. I found, however, that I had already read most of the good stuff.

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