BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

People who write are apt to be peculiar, especially people who write poetry, and certainly one of the most peculiar of them all was that 18th century Englishman named William Blake.

In addition to writing poetry, Blake engraved pictures, and in addition to engraving pictures, he saw visions. When he was a small boy he scared the wits out of his father by telling him how, when he was taking a walk one afternoon, he suddenly came across a tree filled with angels. And then, a little later, at supper one evening, he caught everybody off balance when, without any warning at all, he pointed his finger at the dining room window and announced that he saw pressed against it the great and inscrutable face of God. On that occasion, his father apparently decided that things had gone far enough, because he gave his son a sound beating.

William continued to see visions all his life. Needless to say, many people thought that he was mad, and they could have mustered considerable evidence to support that view. Mad or not, Blake nonetheless found in his visions the inspiration for a series of poems and pictures the best of which provide us with some of the uncanniest insights into the nature of things that we have ever had from anybody.

I intend to refer to one of these images — the etching pictured above in its actual size — when I preach the Baccalaureate sermon for Saint Andrew’s Episcopal School here at Saint Francis on June 4th.

The Authour to the Reader.

BEing desirous (thorow the Mercy of GOD) to please Him, for whom I am, and live, and who giveth mee my Desires and Performances; and considering with my self, That the way to please him, is to feed my Flocke diligently and faithfully, since our Saviour hath made that the argument of a Pastour’s love, I have resolved to set down the Form and Character of a true Pastour, that I may have a Mark to aim at: which also I will set as high as I can, since hee shoots higher that threatens the Moon, then hee that aims at a Tree. Not that I think, if a man do not all which is here expressed, hee presently sinns, and displeases God, but that it is a good strife to go as farre as wee can in pleasing of him, who hath done so much for us. The Lord prosper the intention to my selfe, and others, who may not despise my poor labours, but add to those points, which I have observed, untill the Book grow to a compleat Pastorall.