William Blake on love & intellect

The Angel that presided oer my birth
Said Little creature formd of Joy & Mirth
Go love without the help of any King on Earth

— Poems from the Notebook, N 32, poem 98, circa 1808-1809
[Erdman: 1st reading: “thou art formd for Mirth”]
[final version: ‘Thing’ overwritten by ‘King', ‘for Joy’ replaced by ‘of Joy’]

Grown old in Love from Seven till Seven times Seven
I oft have wishd for Hell for Ease from Heaven

— Poems from the Notebook, N 54, epigram #71, 1806 [image 53 on the web site]

Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have <curbed &> governd their Passions or have No Passions but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion but Realities of Intellect from which All the Passions Emanate <Uncurbed> in their Eternal Glory The Fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so Holy. Holiness is not The Price of Enterance into Heaven Those who are cast out Are All Those who having no Passions of their own because No Intellect. Have spent their lives in Curbing & Governing other Peoples by the Various arts of Poverty & Cruelty of all kinds Wo Wo Wo to you Hypocrites Even Murder the Courts of Justice <more merciful than the Church> are compelld to allow is not done in Passion but in Cool Blooded Design & Intention

— A Vision of the Last Judgment, 1810, p. 87