Imagination is the Divine Body in every man. William Blake
Tiger Lilies in the garden at Lilac Hill
The Tyger, by William Blake (Published in 1795)
Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
In the forest of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame they fearful symmetry?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
On Imagination
An excerpt from If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
Now this creative power I think is the Holy Ghost. My theology may not be very accurate but this is how I think of it. I know that William Blake called this creative power the Imagination and he said it was God. He, if anyone, ought to know, for he was one to the greatest poets and artists that ever lived.
Now Blake thought that this creative power should be kept alive in all people for all of their lives. And so do I. Why? Because it is life itself. It is the Spirit. In fact it is the only important thing about us. The rest of us is legs and stomach, materialistic cravings, and fears.
How could we keep it alive? By using it, by letting it out, by giving time to it...
Blake used to say, when his energies were diverted from his drawing or writing, "that he was being devoured by jackels and hyenas." And his love of Art (i.e., expressing in painting or writing the ideas that came to his Imagination) was so great that he would see nothing but Art in anything he loved. And so, as he loved the Apostles and Jesus, he used to say that "they were all artists."
God he often called the "Poetic Genius" and he said "He who loves feels love descend into him and if he has wisdom, may perceive it is from the Poetic Genius, which is the Lord."
As for Blake's happiness -- a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me,"
As an old man, Blake's wish for a little girl was "that God might make His world as beautiful to her as it had been to him."
He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven.