There Is Much To Pity In This Disenchanting World Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

(for the poet William Blake)

there is much to Pity in this disenchanting world
so felt William Blake in his illuminating way
the self turned inward all shell and no pearl
the cries of children drifting drowning
on a limpid day
how shall I enumerate the sorrows
I seem to hear him say
on watery afternoons. in early Spring
poor Thel in water colours
the worm infested rose
lost continents in peril across the vanishing green.
and yet it is golden, sight unseen in terrifying tygers
in ultraviolet shades
I feel he softly said
though the neighbors deemed him mad
leaning his star struck spindly ladder

against a daylight moon.
oh my prophetic, my intricately tuned soul
my angels in trees unexpectedly
break out in singing, inordinately gold
and never shall grow old at sixes and at sevens;
forever and forever at the brink of Heaven.
mary angela douglas 13 august 2022; 10 march 2023