William Blake was one of the Romantic Age’s greatest poets and minds whose writing is notable in its passionate tone, eloquent command of language, and romantic flavor. Blake wrote of similar muses as other poets such as cities, love, and nature but much of what he saw seems lost in today’s world. With our North American bipolar weather and gloomy stories in the news (as has become the usual) there are not many similarities to Blake’s spring with its “perfumed garments” in To Spring:
O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
thro’ the clear windows of the morning—turn
thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
which in full choir hails thy approach,
O Spring!
The hills tell each other, and the listening
valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
and let thy holy feet visit our clime.
Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.
O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
thy golden crown upon her languished head,
whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.
Blake’s spring would be refreshing in 2016. If instead of seeing all of the problems that the world faces this season we could instead, if only for a moment, listen with the valleys and taste the season’s morning and evening breath I think that we would appreciate the good things in life a little more.
Sometimes we can be too wrapped up in our day to day challenges whether those are school, work, personal struggles, social struggles, or any combination of these and other issues and it can become very difficult to take a step back and appreciate the world for what it is.
I think that part of the issue is that we don’t take enough time to put ourselves in perspective to the world around us and realize that the world does not revolve around us or any person but rather we are one cog in a giant machine. I think that William Blake saw and appreciated this machine in To Spring, and he wrote this love poem to the machine.
Spring 2016 needs more of this attitude. Without it, we lose the object of our “longing eyes’” gaze.
