The Holy One
William Blake
She looked and saw Joseph the Carpenter in Nazareth and Mary
His espoused Wife. And Mary said, If thou put me away from
thee
Dost thou not murder me? Joseph spoke in anger and fury:
Should
I
Marry a Harlot and an Adulteress? Mary answer'd: Art thou
more
pure
Than thy Maker, who forgiveth Sins and calls again Her that
is
Lost?
. . . . . . .
He
who envies or calumniates, which is
murder and cruelty,
Murders the Holy-one. Go tell them this
and overthrow their cup,
Their bread, their altar-table, their
incense, and their oath;
Their marriage and their baptism,
their burial and consecration.
I have tried to make friends by
corporeal gifts, but have only
Made enemies; I never made
friends but by spiritual gifts,
By severe contentions of
friendship and the burning fire of thought.
He who would see
the Divinity must see him in his Children,
One first in
friendship and love, then a Divine Family, and in
the midst
Jesus will appear; so he who wishes to see a Vision,
a perfect
Whole,
Must see it in its Minute Particulars, Organised, and
not as thou,
O Fiend of Righteousness, pretendest; thine is a
Disorganised
And snowy cloud; brooder of tempests and
destructive War,
You smile with pomp and rigor; you talk of
benevolence and virtue;
I act with benevolence and virtue, and
get murder'd time after
time;
You accumulate Particulars, and murder by analysing,
that you
May take the aggregate, and you call the aggregate
Moral Law;
And you call that swell'd and bloated Form a Minute
Particular.
But General Forms have their vitality in
Particulars; and every
Particular is a Man, a Divine Member of
the Divine Jesus.
. . . . . . .
And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence.
If
I should dare to lay my finger on a grain of sand
In way of
vengeance, I punish the already punish'd. O whom
Should I pity
if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray?
O Albion, if thou
takest vengeance, if thou revengest thy wrongs,
Thou art for
ever lost! What can I do to hinder the sons
Of Albion from
taking vengeance or how shall I them persuade?