Workers' Liberty

Born in London in 1757, William Blake lived through both the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, and witnessed the vicious repression in Britain after these events by the ruling class. Although a deeply spiritual, religious, man, he was nevertheless appalled by the condition of his fellow human beings and laid the blame squarely on the twin evils of Church and state.

SUNDAY BEFORE WAR
Whitechapel, East London 13-1-'91.

Rattling, clatt'ring, reverberating echoes roar
And bounce along the streets outside the hospital,

DESPAIR AND PRESUMPTION

Despair rules now — sick child of my presumption?
I craved self-spun great social peaks; town-cried
For God's omniscience, for Man's assumption

MAURA RUA

Did you hear of "Maura Ru" — Red Mary? She
Betrayed her absent husband: Queen, Tyrant,
Red murdress hated by the tenantry
She tortured for the craic, and racked by rent.

IRELAND
I am of Ireland:
Long years ago I left it;
It does not leave me;
It does not go from me,
It will not go from me.

MY TIME MACHINE

Time flies — but so can I!
I flit, gadfly, pilgrim
Around in time; I fly
Back and forth at whim,
Zoom in and out and back
And forth through years, decades

LAMENT FOR AN UNEXPECTED DEATH
God
God
God
God!
My God

MIRRORS

My mirror is a moving film,
Never still: life is no stable realm:
Time rushes you behind yourself,
Transfiguring what you will find:

ON ARANMOR
The man, grey-bearded, bulky, cold,
Who stands on a rock against our old
Foot-lapping grey Atlantic Sea,

IN TIR NA N'OG
I got drunk to wash my fear away:
Everything was not OK,
But I could bear it better.

I got drunk, and fell into a sleep
Of turmoil: there, time had a softer grip,

THE IDOLATORS
Rude tabernacle! Brick-strewn ground,
A broken house near New Cross Gate,
Where four old men, faced red and gray,
Their clothes unkempt and deshabille,
Stand in masterful command

TIMEBENDS
Age only eats those mauled by time?
No: Age will sometimes break
Right out of Time, spurning the seasoned
Of mature, half-sated years:
From ambush, sideways, Age rears

OEDIPUS REGRETS
Oh, Mum, Mum,
I did you wrong;

ROUGH JUSTICE
Enormous wrong
When you are done
With sudden blows
By one too close,
Leaves you guilty.
For this penalty
Must have cause:
There are moral laws!
Subconscious thought

MUTILATIONS
A doomed child
Already crippled,
My tongue-strings cut
To match my folk:
Acid is thrown

THE JOY OF DRY
Near-fatal proximity:
In self-disgust and loathing,
The urge to harm myself,
In a public house, black porter
There on tap; and I must watch
Old men draw wet contentment

AMHRAIN*
The sweetest sound I'll ever know
Is the music, fervent, rhythmic, crooning
Of my strong distracted woman tuning
To the beat of my slow fiddle bow.

*Song

EX-COMMUNIST CONSCIENCE.
"The day I meet old Trotsky,
He'll take me by the hand
And peer suspiciously
At me: but I'll understand;
And I'll stare back at Trotsky!

If he asks me why I'm loath,

LAMENT OF AN UNFASHIONABLE POLITICIAN
I'm a figure of hatred, believe it or not,
And for many I've not even met!
I'm fit subject for loathing and hissing and spite:

THE HIGHER BARBARISM
Barbarians at the gate,
Civilised folk within:
Rabble pull down the great

NINA RUAH*
Out of the womb,
Out of the night

AFTER THE FALL

A. I dreamt I walked with History
Along sure paths already set and mapped;
I marched with confidence and courage, critical

MURDER ON A LONDON STREET
Guiseppi's grey head lies where flowing blood
Gives it a glass-black glistening halo, bright
Against the flagstone in the London night;

A DYING SOCIALIST TO HIS SON
Their sick old order burgeons, I decline,
"Perspectives" narrowed to a blurred gray line,
Part of nothing big, soon to prevail,

REPORT FROM A WAR ZONE
A. How goes the war?

B. It's burning down, I guess.
In hills and hollows and ancient caves
Inside the half-unknown interior,
Guerrillas still lie lurking,

THE CURSE OF TROTSKY

Two things I cursed are gone out of the world

DeValera's sealed green Catholic arcadia,
Small frail redout of revenant Gaels: epigones

AND WHERE WERE JACOB SVERDLOV'S SONS?

Sverdlov killed the bloody Tsar,
He signed the warrant for it;
So when they struck his statue down
The Tsarists cheered who saw it:

COLLAGE FOR A BLEAK APRIL

[The third part of this is
also listed separately as:
"What Is To Be Done?"]