If I were pure, never could I taste the sweets of the forgiveness of sins.
If I were holy, I never could behold the tears of love:
Of Him who loves me in the midst of His anger.
I heard His voice in my sleep, and His angel in my dream
Saying, Doth Jehovah forgive a debt, only on condition that it shall
Be paid? Doth He forgive pollution only on condition of purity?
That debt is not forgiven! that pollution is not forgiven!
Such is the forgiveness of the gods; the moral virtues of the
Heathen, whose tender mercies are cruelty. But Jehovah's salvation
Is without money and without price, in the continual forgiveness of sins.
The vegetative universe opens like a flower from the earth's centre,
In which is eternity. It expands in stars to the mundane shell.
And there it meets Eternity again, both within and without.
What may man be? Who can tell? But what may women be
To have power over man from cradle to corruptible grave?
He who was an Infant, and whose cradle was a manger,
Knoweth the Infant Sorrow, whence it came and where it goeth.
And who weave it a cradle of the grass that withereth away.
This world is all a cradle for the erred, wandering Phantom,
Rock'd by year, month, day, and hour. And every two moments
Between, dwells a daughter of Beulah, to feed the human vegetable.
Rock the cradle, ah me! of that eternal man!
The magic influences of one of the 'daughters of Beulah' are thus described:—
She creates at her will a little moony night and silence,
With spaces of sweet gardens and a tent of elegant beauty
Closed in by sandy deserts, and a night of stars shining;
A little tender moon, and hovering angels on the wing.
And the male gives a time and revolution to her space
Till the time of love is passed in ever-varying delights:
For all things exist in the human imagination.
This last line contains what deserves to be called the corner-stone of Blake's philosophy. For his philosophy had
