William Blake
When he was just nine years old, the poet and artist, William Blake, was surprised by a vision of angels in, of all places, East Dulwich. He later described “A tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars”. This mystical experience influenced both his poetry and his art throughout his life.
William Blake was a little eccentric and had a different way of seeing. Most of us are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the one who sees and the image that strikes our retina as the ‘thing’ we see, somehow separate from us. But William Blake put it this way: “When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?” Oh! no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!” I question not my corporeal eye any more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I look through it and not with it.”
Music, poetry and art are just three of the ways in which we perceive ‘through’, not merely ‘with’ our sense organs. Choirs ‘sing’ with what St Paul called the ‘tongues of angels’. Poets find a metre not of their own making on which to hang their words and artists paint with the palette of the rainbow. All creative artists are ‘prophets’ in their own way, and they all open a window into the worship of the heavenly host.
Fr Stiiv Knowers (Tallinn)
28 September 2025
