On this very bough I sit on now
William and Catherine, nude perhaps, made vows
For all eternity and every living
Thing that they would spend their lives in giving
Everlasting gospels to the world.
From Felpham, near my home, they were unfurled
In prints and poems emboldened by the might
Of voices in our history that fight
Through every generation for greater power.
To feel the sap and growing strength in our
Intent to save all species and explore
The solar system and abolish war,
Was to feel the tree’s determination
Rooted in a freedom-loving nation.
Above, the sea breeze plays the million leaves;
We hear each contribution as it achieves
The dignity and the delight of being,
Whispering together new ways of seeing.
Hear the sound of the Dissenters calling,
See the Crown and dark deceivers falling;
How each leaf shimmers sun-beamed, free at last,
The Lollards liberated from the past,
The Levellers and Diggers dancing on this green,
All non-conformists vindicated, unseen
Conventicles now shaping this great tree,
Each one an angel of our history.
Where we can see just chains of events gone by,
They see one single catastrophe piling high.
Disaster after disaster at their feet.
They’d like to stay and make the past complete,
Awaken the dead who had been smashed, but a gale
From Paradise is blowing and makes them wail
As it crashes their wings so they can’t close and sweeps
Them to the future to which their backs keep
Turned as the debris before them grows higher and higher.
This is progress: civilisation and pyre
.
Doug Nicholls
Painting William Blake
https://www.blakecottage.org/
https://www.blakecottage.org/home/donate
.