Lullaby--by William Blake (1757-1827)

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war! - When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

1 comment:

All Consuming said...

Excellent poem. As you may have noted from my posts I am a keen lover of poetry.

My husband and I (that sounds very like the queen) have a medium sized dog which is part staffordshire terrier and part who knows. She's one of the joys of my life to be honest.

The broom seems to collect the hairs from even the deepest recesses of the carpet, though it takes a bit of elbow grease, so I have now assigned hubby to that job. He seems to find it such a novelty that we have clean hairless carpet showing there's no stopping him.

I say 'tragic' as I have a rather dark sense of humour which tends to lean towards sarcasm, so actually I just find it funny that I enjoy such small things, and yes, being ill for so long has made me appreciate these things far more.

I seem to be getting more interested in the existential as I get older actually. You have a much heavier weight than I to carry though health-wise methinks, and I agree that an understanding about appreciating what we do have makes a silver lining of some kind appear.