AMERICA A PROPHECY (Illustrated Edition) E-Book

William Blake

• Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 15

Beschreibung

"America a Prophecy" is a 1793 prophetic book by English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's Continental prophecies. America was one of the few works that Blake describes as "illuminated printing", those of which were either hand coloured or colour printed with the ink being placed on the copperplate before printed. Early sketches for America were also included in his notebook, which Blake used between 1790 and 1793. William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

Leseprobe

William Blake

AMERICA A PROPHECY

(Illustrated Edition)

Published by

Books

- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

[email protected]

2017 OK Publishing

ISBN 978-80-272-3161-4

Table of Contents

Preludium

A Prophecy

Preludium

Table of Contents

The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc.

When fourteen suns had faintly journey’d o’er his dark abode; 

His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron; 

Crown’d with a helmet & dark hair the nameless female stood; 

A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night, 

When pestilence is shot from heaven; no other arms she need: 

Invulnerable tho’ naked, save where clouds roll round her loins, 

Their awful folds in the dark air; silent she stood as night; 

For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise; 

But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay’d his fierce embrace.

Dark virgin; said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr’d; 

Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars; 

Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion, 

Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash 

The raging fathomless abyss, anon a serpent folding

Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs, 

On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.

For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food 

I howl my joy! and my red eyes seek to behold thy face 

In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.

Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,

The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire; 

Round the terrific loins he siez’d the panting struggling womb; 

It joy’d: she put aside her clouds & smiled her firstborn smile;