William Blake Quotes on Society
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Degrade first the arts if you'd mankind degrade, Hire idiots to paint with cold light and hot shade.
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Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.
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I asked a thief to steal me a peach: He turned up his eyes. I asked a lithe lady to lie her down: Holy and meek, she cries. As soon as I went An angel came. He winked at the thief And smiled at the dame- And without one word said Had a peach from the tree, And still as a maid Enjoyed the lady.
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In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
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But most, thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot's curse Blasts the new born Infant's tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
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Children of the future Age Reading this indignant page, Know that in a former time Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.
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Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secrecy the human dress.
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A dog starved at his master's gate Predicts the ruin of the state.
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The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
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Poetry fettered fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed, or flourish, in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish!
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What is a Wife & what is a Harlot? What is a Church & What Is a Theatre? are they Two & not One? can they Exist Separate? Are not Religion & Politics the Same Thing? Brotherhood is Religion O Demonstrations of Reason Dividing Families in Cruelty & Pride!
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It is not at all certain that a merely moral criticism of society may not be just as 'revolutionary' - and revolution, after all, means turning things upside down - as the politico-economic criticism which is fashionable at this moment. Blake was not a politician, but there is more understanding of the nature of capitalist society in a poem like 'I wander through each charter'd street' than in three-quarters of Socialist literature.