Allen Ginsberg on William Blake’s The Book of Ahania continues from here
AG: There’s also, on page eighty-nine, the very last verse:
“But now alone over rocks, mountains/Cast out from thy lovely bosom:/ Cruel jealousy! selfish fear!/Self-destroying: how can delight,/Renew in these chains of darkness.”
There’s another little poem written around that same time, from the openings of the Songs of Experience on page eighteen of this book, first “proem” – “Introduction“ (The first is the prophet speaking, and then it’s the answer to the prophet (or) Earth’s answer).
Student: What page is this?
AG: Page Eighteen of the Erdman edition. The “Introduction” we’ll go through first, because “The Answer”. (“Earth’s Answer”) is the answer to it. Can you do that, Peter?
Peter Orlovsky: Well, I don’t have it.
AG: Page Eighteen, Oh, okay. The Songs of Experience, the first poem in Songs of Experience
PO: What page is that on?
AG: Well, see, you have a different edition. [to Student] Can you find Songs of Experience in there?
Student: (What’s the first line?)
AG: It begins, “Hear the voice of the Bard”. Can you turn on a light, someone? Joel, can you do that? Tom?
PO: “Hear the voice of the Bard!/Who Present, Past, & Future speaks”
AG: Sees! You better get the words right! Let’s see, Songs of Experience.. Where is that? It’s in the beginning, isn’t it?
PO: I think that … I don’t know. It’s at the end.
AG: No. Wait a minute, let’s look it up.
Student: The poem’s in Songs of Experience, I think.
AG: Well, it’s this edition which is different, so I’ve got to figure where that is. Page two-ten
PO: Two-ten.
AG: Two-ten, yeah. Got it?
PO: Got it. Want me to read it?
AG: Well, let’s sing it.
PO: Oh, sing it.
“Hear the voice of the Bard!/ Who Present, Past, & Future speaks/The Holy Word,/That walk’d among the ancient trees./Calling the lapsed Soul/And weeping in the evening dew;/That might controll,/The starry pole;/And fallen fallen light renew!/ O Earth O Earth return!/ Arise from out the dewy grass;/Night is worn,/And the morn/Rises from the slumberous mass./ Turn away no more:/Why wilt thou turn away/The starry floor/The watry shore/Is giv’n thee till the break of day.”
AG: (And then) Earth’s Answer (which repeats the terms of the end of Ahania):
“Earth rais’d up her head,/From the darkness dread & drear./Her light fled:/Stony dread!/And her locks cover’d with grey despair./ Prison’d on watry shore/ Starry Jealousy does keep my den/ Cold and hoar/ Weeping o’er/I hear the Father of the ancient men”- (That’s Urizen here – “I hear the Father of the ancient men” – Earth complaining)
“Selfish father of men/ Cruel jealous selfish fear/Can delight/Chain’d in night/The virgins of youth and morning bear./ Does spring hide its joy/ When buds and blossoms grow?/ Does the sower?/ Sow by night?/ Or the plowman in darkness plow?/ Break this heavy chain,/That does freeze my bones around/ Selfish! vain,/Eternal bane!/That free Love with bondage bound.”
Well, we made that up on the spot, (the music), whatever tune that was.
So it’s the same: “Does spring hide its joy/When buds and blossoms grow?” -“Cruel jealous selfish fear” – “Starry Jealousy does keep my den” – “Selfish father of men/Cruel jealous selfish fear.” I think they were written in the same year, or published in the same year. Printed up in the same year, 1795, I think, is the date. 1794 for Songs of Experience and 1795 for Ahania
to be continued