A l’image de Dieu ?

Étiquettes

William Blake

A Divine Image

Cruelty has a human heart;
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy, the human dress.

The human dress, is forged iron,
The human form, a fiery forge.
The human face, a furnace seal’d
The human heart, its hungry gorge.

William Blake, Appendix to the songs of innocence and of experience

Another’s sorrow

Étiquettes

compassion, souffrance, William Blake

On Another’s Sorrow

Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear –

And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant’s tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
O no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give His joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

O He gives to us His joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

William Blake, Songs of innocence

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Parmi les diverses mises en musique de ce poème, j’en signalerai deux.

Une version blues par Martha Redbone qui a semble-t-il consacré un album – The Garden of Love – à William Blake.

Un extrait de la B.O. du film A little princess, composée par Patrick Doyle. Je n’ai pas vu ce film, mais il semble que ce soit l’adaptation cinématographique du roman dont mes plus si jeunes lecteurs connaisse l’adaptation en série d’animation sous le nom de Princesse Sarah.

L’oeil du Tigre

Étiquettes

Bertrand Russell, Elias Canetti, William Blake

« L’un de mes plus anciens souvenirs de Crompton est celui de notre rencontre au collège [1] dans un des endroits les plus sombres d’un escalier tournant, lorsque, de but en blanc, il se mit à réciter in extenso : « Tyger, tyger burning bright … »je n’avais jusqu’alors jamais entendu parler de Blake , et ce poème fit sur moi une impression si forte que je vacillai et que je dus m’appuyer au mur »

Bertrand Russell, Autobiographie p. 66

[1] : Il s’agit de Cambridge, pas de la 4eB!

« C’est seulement après avoir lu le poème de Blake que j’ai su ce qu’était réellement un tigre ».

Elias Canetti, Le territoire de l’homme, p. 33

*

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William BLAKE, Songs of experience 1794