William Blake: Selected Poems

Summary

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.” —from “Auguries of Innocence”

At the end of his life, William Blake gave up hope of being widely understood, but the twentieth century brought his work a new and intense interest and acclaim. A poet, artist, and mystic, Blake declared that “I must Create a System or be enslav’d by another Man’s.” And create he did.

Included in this collection are well-known poems such as “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright” and “A Poison Tree,” longer poems such as “The Everlasting Gospel,” an assortment of epigrams and short satire, and Blake’s principal prose work, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”