Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827, BritishText by Edward Young, 1683–1765, BritishPublished by Richard Edwards, active 1796–1797, British
Title:
'And vapid; sense and reason shew the door' (Page 72)
Date:
1797
Materials & Techniques:
Etching, line engraving, and letterpress
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "72 | *And vapid; sense and reason shew the door, | Call for my bier, and point me to the dust. | O THOU! great arbiter of life and death! | Nature's immortal, immaterial sun! | Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth | From darkness--teeming darkness where I lay | The worm's inferior, and in rank beneath | The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow, | To drink the spirit of the golden day, | And triumph in existence! and couldst know | No motive but my bliss! and hast ordain'd | A rise in blessing! with the patriarch's joy, | Thy call I follow to the land unknown: | I trust in THEE, and know in whom I trust: | Or life or death is equal; neither weighs; | All weight in this--O let me live to THEE! | Though nature's terrors thus may be repress'd; | Still frowns grim death, guilt points the tyrant's spear: | And whence all human guilt?--from death forgot. | Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm | Of friendly warnings which around me flew; | And smiled unsmitten: small my cause to smile! | Death's admonitions, like shafts upward shot, | More dreadful by delay; the longer ere | They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound: | O think how deep, LORENZO! here it stings: | Who can appease its anguish? how it burns! | What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw? | What healing hand can pour the balm of peace, | And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb?"; lower left: "in & s | WB"; lower left: "Pubd. June 1st. 1797, by R Edwards, No. 142 New Bond Street."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1978.43.1370
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
William Blake - His Art & Times (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1982-12-03 - 1983-02-06)William Blake - His Art & Times (Yale Center for British Art, 1982-09-15 - 1982-11-14)