
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
"To One in Paradise", st. 1 (1834).
Context: Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine —
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 1, plate 5, lines 21-23 The Words of Blake
“Whoe'er thou art, thy Lord and master see,
Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.”
Inscription for a Figure representing the God of Love. See Genuine Works. (1732) I. 129. Version of a Greek couplet from the Greek Anthology.
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 82
Context: But here shewed our courteous Lord the moaning and the mourning of the soul, signifying thus: I know well thou wilt live for my love, joyously and gladly suffering all the penance that may come to thee; but in as much as thou livest not without sin thou wouldest suffer, for my love, all the woe, all the tribulation and distress that might come to thee. And it is sooth. But be not greatly aggrieved with sin that falleth to thee against thy will.
And here I understood that that the Lord beholdeth the servant with pity and not with blame. For this passing life asketh not to live all without blame and sin.
“I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved?”
Songs and Sonnets (1633), The Good-Morrow
Context: p>I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.</p
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 613
“Bad herdsmen waste the flocks which thou hast left behind.”
XVII. 246 (tr. Worsley).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)