“I bless thee, …

“I bless thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth, that ever I saw Flaxman’s face.
Angels stand round my Spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven are my friends upon earth.
When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me for a season,
And now Flaxman has given me Hayley his friend to be mine, such my lot upon Earth.
Now my lot in the Heavens is this, Milton lov’d me in childhood& showed me his face.
Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me hid hand;
Paraclesus & Behmen appear’d to me, terrors appear’d in the Heavens above.
And in Hell beneath & a mighty & awful change theatened the earth.
The American War behan. All its dark horrors passed before my face
Across the Atlantic to France. THen the French Revolution commenc’d in think clouds.
And my Angels have told me that seeing such visions I could not subsist on the Earth.
But by my conjunction with Flaxman, who knows how to forgive Nervous Fear.

This is a quote from William Blake’s 12 September 1800 letter to John Flaxman that I found in The Letters of William Blake, edited by Geoffrey Keynes. ❤