" To See a World in a Grain of Sand "

William Blake
"To See a World..."

(Fragments from "Auguries of Innocence"


 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.
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Horse misused upon the Road
A Dog starved at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A fiber from the Brain does tear.
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Thro’ the World we safely go.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.

Basically, the idea is that any little thing in the world—a grain of sand, a wildflower—contains some sort of greater cosmic truth if you can look at it with enough energy and imagination. A wildflower is a miniature heaven, a grain of sand is a miniature world… and every person and other living thing, in Blake's view, is a miniature of the Divine Human or "Human Form Divine," which he identified with Jesus. Nearly all the metaphors Blake uses in the rest of the poem tend to be like worlds hidden in grains of sand. A robin in a cage is an example of freedom being crushed by tyranny in a universal way, for example.

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