I heard an Angel singing

1 I heard an Angel singing
2 When the day was springing,
3 "Mercy, Pity, Peace
4 Is the world's release."

5 Thus he sung all day
6 Over the new mown hay,
7 Till the sun went down
8 And haycocks looked brown.

9 I heard a Devil curse
10 Over the heath and the furze,
11 "Mercy could be no more,
12 If there was nobody poor,

13 And pity no more could be,
14 If all were as happy as we."
15 At his curse the sun went down,
16 And the heavens gave a frown.

17 Down pour'd the heavy rain
18 Over the new reap'd grain ...
19 And Miseries' increase
20 Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.

by William Blake
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William Blake (November 28, 1757–August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Though largely unrecognised during his lifetime, today Blake's work, produced in partnership with his wife Catherine, is widely known. According to Northrop Frye, who undertook a study of Blake's entire poetic opus, his prophetic poems form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the [English] language". Others have praised Blake's visual artistry, in particular his engravings: "[Blake] is far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 1957 a small memorial was erected in memory of him and his wife.Viewing Blake's accomplishments in either poetry or in the visual arts separately is to do him a disservice; Blake himself saw these two disciplines as being companions in a unified spiritual endeavour, and they are inseparable in a proper appreciation of his work. His life is, perhaps, summed up by his statement that "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself"; though this alone may not do justice to his thought. more...