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Blake: Selected Poetry (Poetry Library, Penguin)

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Consider the last stanza of Blake's "The Scoffers"
"The atoms of Democritus
And Newton's particles of light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright."

Or consider the first stanza of " A Poison Tree"
"I am angry with my friend,
I told my wrath, my wrath did end;
I was angry with my foe,
I told it not, my wrath did grow."

In these two small selections it is possible to see a good part of what defines the essence of Blake's greatness. The music of the verses, their hypnotic power which makes them so easily subject to memorization, the element of original thought, or idiosyncratic new perception, the psychological acuity the revolutionary kind of religious faith and social message, the aphoristic intensity, all these taken together define some of the elements of Blake's greatness, a greatness which is richly represented in this anthology.