By Salvatore Scimino
July 13, 2012
Auguries of Innocence by William Blake
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.
A robin redbreast
in a cage
Puts all heaven in
a rage.
A dove-house
fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell
thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at
his master's gate
Predicts the ruin
of the state.
A horse misused
upon the road
Calls to heaven
for human blood.
Each outcry of the
hunted hare
A fibre from the
brain does tear.
A skylark wounded
in the wing,
A cherubim does
cease to sing.
The game-cock
clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising
sun affright.
Every wolf's and
lion's howl
Raises from hell a
human soul.
The wild deer,
wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human
soul from care.
The lamb misus'd
breeds public strife,
And yet forgives
the butcher's knife.
The bat that flits
at close of eve
Has left the brain
that won't believe.
The owl that calls
upon the night
Speaks the
unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt
the little wren
Shall never be
belov'd by men.
He who the ox to
wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by
woman lov'd.
The wanton boy
that kills the fly
Shall feel the
spider's enmity.
He who torments
the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in
endless night.
The caterpillar on
the leaf
Repeats to thee
thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth
nor butterfly,
For the last
judgement draweth nigh.
He who shall train
the horse to war
Shall never pass
the polar bar.
The beggar's dog
and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou
wilt grow fat.
The gnat that
sings his summer's song
Poison gets from
slander's tongue.
The poison of the
snake and newt
Is the sweat of
envy's foot.
The poison of the
honey bee
Is the artist's
jealousy.
The prince's robes
and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on
the miser's bags.
A truth that's
told with bad intent
Beats all the lies
you can invent.
It is right it
should be so;
Man was made for
joy and woe;
And when this we
rightly know,
Thro' the world we
safely go.
Joy and woe are
woven fine,
A clothing for the
soul divine.
Under every grief
and pine
Runs a joy with
silken twine.
The babe is more
than swaddling bands;
Every farmer
understands.
Every tear from
every eye
Becomes a babe in
eternity;
This is caught by
females bright,
And return'd to
its own delight.
The bleat, the
bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that
beat on heaven's shore.
The babe that
weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in
realms of death.
The beggar's rags,
fluttering in air,
Does to rags the
heavens tear.
The soldier, arm'd
with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes
the summer's sun.
The poor man's
farthing is worth more
Than all the gold
on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from
the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell
the miser's lands;
Or, if protected
from on high,
Does that whole
nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the
infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in
age and death.
He who shall teach
the child to doubt
The rotting grave
shall ne'er get out.
He who respects
the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell
and death.
The child's toys
and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of
the two seasons.
The questioner,
who sits so sly,
Shall never know
how to reply.
He who replies to
words of doubt
Doth put the light
of knowledge out.
The strongest
poison ever known
Came from Caesar's
laurel crown.
Nought can deform
the human race
Like to the
armour's iron brace.
When gold and gems
adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts
shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the
cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit
reply.
The emmet's inch
and eagle's mile
Make lame
philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from
what he sees
Will ne'er
believe, do what you please.
If the sun and
moon should doubt,
They'd immediately
go out.
To be in a passion
you good may do,
But no good if a
passion is in you.
The whore and
gambler, by the state
Licensed, build
that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry
from street to street
Shall weave old
England's winding-sheet.
The winner's
shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead
England's hearse.
Every night and
every morn
Some to misery are
born,
Every morn and
every night
Some are born to
sweet delight.
Some are born to
sweet delight,
Some are born to
endless night.
We are led to
believe a lie
When we see not
thro' the eye,
Which was born in
a night to perish in a night,
When the soul
slept in beams of light.
God appears, and
God is light,
To those poor
souls who dwell in night;
But does a human
form display
To those who dwell
in realms of day.
William Blake (1757-1827) was quite a visionary. When he said that there was a world contained in a grain of sand he not only meant it but also felt it.
It turns out the team of physicists led by Dr. Sidney Nagel of the University of Chicago have found an amazing similarity between the birth of the universe and streams of flowing sand grains or granular materials.
Scientists have observed that a stream of granular materials produce liquid-like behaviour creating a hollow cone when hitting a target narrower than the stream (Fig. 1-2).
Figure 1. A stream of granular materials hitting a target. Source: The University of Chicago News Office.
Figure 2. A jet of glass beads after collinding with a target. Source: The University of Chicago News Office.
They have carried out experiments at the Brookhaven Laboratory in New York with a particle collider (the RHIC, Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) and have observed liquid-like behaviour in colliding particles that simulate the birth of the universe, in a dense soup of subatomic particles, a state referred to as "quark-gluon plasma" (Fig. 2)
Cosmologists believe that a few millionth of a second after the Big Bang that gave rise to the universe there was a quark-gluon plasma condition.
Photo credits:
Milky Way: Marco Lorenzi
Planet Earth: NASA
Black Sea: Worldatlaspedia
Grain of sand: Coastalcare.org
William Blake´s poem: Arts of Europe
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