Spirits associated with Venus. Venus, as the "morning star" rises before dawn each morning, and remains unseen after the rise of full daylight. In this poem Thel is, herself, a personified form of Platonic essence.
Note here that, as in the Songs of Innocence, the reference
to lambs and sheep carry associations of the unquestioning docility
and innocence of the 'State of Innocence'
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associated with the figure of Adonis, the youth loved by Venus,
and here used as an image of prepubescent sexual desire. Thel,
in other words, is experiencing the first inklings of interest
in sexuality and desire, and of experience in general.
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Thel, here in the paradisial state (Eden) is discontented, and
is beginnning to ask questions of her insubstantial state and
the unreality of her life: her tone is almost self-indulgent,
youthful world-wearying, rather than justifiably aggrieved.
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A complex internal allusion, but in all probability a reference
to the garden which corresponds to the Garden of Eden: in abstract
terms "Har" is associated with a vale of paradise, prior
to the Fall. Har, in Blake's Tiriel, corresponds to Adam,
and Thel's life is Har is an idyllic and paridisial state of either
innocence or of ignorance, depending on your point of view.
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Like any self-absorbed adoloscent, Thel can accept that the Lilly
lives a wholly (holy?) generous life, giving out freely, and living
in humility and modesty, but continues to feel sorry for herself
and of the fact that no-one depends or relies on her.
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The reference here is to the Sun god, Luvah, who daily brings
the dawn.
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Here the Cloud presents itself in platonic terms, passing from
the lower world of experience to the higher and more essential
world above.
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The Clod of Clay nouishes and looks after the lowly worm and,
in this poem, is a symbol of selfless maternal caring. Comparison
with the Clod's remarks in 'The Clod and the Pebble' (Songs of
Experience) is extremely valuable here. Like the Lilly and the
Cloud, the Clod is an example of a positive form of Innocence,
and also, as Clay, Symbol of Mother Earth and therefore of mortal
life itself. It is she who invites Thel to enter into Life, but
Life which (by inevitable implication) also includes death.
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Peter Butter provides this note to this line, with reference also to Homer's Odyssey". Homer in Odyssey XIII.109-12 describes the cave of the Naiads, whose northern gate was interpreted by the neo-Platonists as the means of descent of souls into the state of generation.". The allusion is a helpful one: Thel, here, is descending to earth (experience), but it is also a descent into mortality, and the kingdom of Hades. The later lines, with their reference to "fibrous roots", "grave plot" and "hollow pit" remind us that Thel is being confronted by the reality of the grave. Think of Beckett's lines in Waiting for Godot, that we are born "astride the grave".
It is also worth noting the marvellous way in which the reference
to the lifting of the "northern bar" conjours up the
sense of apocalyptic awakening.
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The "Voice of Sorrow" is here also the Voice of Experience.
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Thel is now confronted by the reality of worldly and sensual
life, with its sensual pleasures and worldly pains. It is a heady
cocktial, and which is too potent for young Thel. She, effectively,
rushes back to the womb! Is she right to do this? The poem, on
balance, suggests that she is retreating back to the unreal comfort
of a false Innocence - she is aware now, and therefore is no longer
truly an 'innocent'. She has not positively "acted"
and, as a soul, has refused experience in order to remain in an
unreal paradise. But there is another view of Thel's responses,
one that sees it as a natural response to confronting the realities
of existence: what newly born child, if he or she had access to
what Thel had discovered, would not also seek to flee back to
the womb?
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An enigmatic quatrain, and one that opens more questions than it answers. The Eagle, from above, has a theoretical knowledge of the "pit" (i.e., worldly experience) which he sees from afar, but it is the blind mole who, even though he is blind, really experiences life in the pit. Which, therefore, of the two forms of knowledge, theoretical and experienced, is better?
The last two lines question whether Wisdom and Love really are, or should be, contained within physical form and moral experience: aren't they best left as untainted spiritual essences, uncorrupted by Experience? The "silver rod" is presumably intended as a phallic reference, whereas the "golden bowl" (the flesh) is not necessarily phallic.