Allen Ginsberg on William Blake continues from here
AG: So we have a tree there (in “The Human Abstract”) And there’s also the “(A) Poison Tree”. Where is that, anyway? – “I was angry with my friend…” Yes, the next page ..”I was angry with my friend;/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end./ I was angry with my foe:/ I told it not, my wrath did grow./ And I waterd it in fear,/Night & morning with my tears:/And I sunned it with smiles,/And with soft deceitful wiles./ And it grew both day and night./ Till it bore an apple bright./And my foe beheld it shine./And he knew that it was mine./ And into my garden stole,/When the night had veild the pole;/ In the morning glad I see;/My foe outstrechd beneath the tree.”
So it was a tree beginning with anger and wrath, then watered with fear, because he didn’t communicate with his friend, and then, because not communicating, sunned it with smiles – – therefore hypocrisy and soft deceitful wiles… what do they call it? (the local word around here is seductiveness). Seductiveness and seductive gift. And then envy rose out of that and curiosity about the mystery, but actually it was poison all along. So one way to kill is with a glad lie, I guess.
So this is Urizen‘s “Tree of MYSTERY”, still. Let’s see what else we got for the Tree. This is also the first appearance of the phrase “Tree of MYSTERY” in Blake, as far as I know, according to Alicia Ostriker. So it’s kind of nice. It’s actually the tree of thought forms – the tree of abstract thought. The World Tree, in the sense of the world composed and solidified of our own projections and thought forms.
[(Allen to Student) Come on in. It’s free, now. The floor is free today]
So, Urizen nailed Fuzon‘s corpse onto the top of this tree. And the tree grows over the void and rooting itself. Why over the void? Because it’s covering all the space with our activity.
to be continued