I Heard an Angel

By William Blake 1757–1827 William Blake

I heard an Angel singing

When the day was springing

Mercy Pity Peace

Is the worlds release

Thus he sung all day

Over the new mown hay

Till the sun went down

And haycocks looked brown

I heard a Devil curse

Over the heath & the furze

Mercy could be no more

If there was nobody poor

And pity no more could be

If all were as happy as we

At his curse the sun went down

And the heavens gave a frown

Down pourd the heavy rain

Over the new reapd grain

And Miseries increase

Is Mercy Pity Peace

Biography

In his Life of William Blake (1863) Alexander Gilchrist warned his readers that Blake "neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work'y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself 'a divine child,' whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and the earth." Yet Blake himself believed that his writings were of national importance and that they could be understood by a majority of men. Far from . . .

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