and heaven in a wild flower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour"
by william blake
Pls help me understand this poem?
Well.. well.. well. I never knew..i'd jus run into tis question.. m a HUUUUGE William Blake admirer :-)
This is the just openin stanza of Auguries of Innocence peom.. and Blake has used lots of Metaphorical work here..
See firstly.. every poem wich is SO philosophical.. can b interpreted in many diff ways.. ther comes lot of subjectivity to it.. hence I wud not say that my interpretation is not 100% authentic.
He has talked about.. "Seeing THE WORLD in something as minuscule as 'grain'.." -- whole our lives we run after all the BIG things in life.. a bigger car..a bigger house.. a bigger job.. et cetera.. bt then.. nuthin satisfies us.. so seemingly.. 'innocent happiness' is in actually admiring a 'grain of sand'.. n not a new-in-market SUV.. innocenct is wat nature is.. n thats from wher we belong.. we belong frm Earth..the REAL SAND and EARTH.. n tats wher we hv to go.. so how can a Bigger house or a better job make us happy.?? nature is wher our happines lies.. %26amp; i think this stanza explains us tat!! "heaven in a wild flower".. --well.. it may take us weeks of efforts to grow a 'rose'.. but no time %26amp; no efforts to see a wild-flower growing (wat we sometmes call weed-flower).. So really see.. a pardise.. in a wild flower..in something wich is so natural %26amp; so unforced..so unstrained.. so see the happiness of a HEAVEN in something wich we pass as so insignificant..!
"to hold infinity in the palm of ur hand"...--we all try to hold on to so many things in life.. every second.. we add on things to our list of "wish-i-didnt-have to-let-this-go-ever".. he's talked bout how we wish to hold on to TIME..make it stand still.. bt it can never %26amp; according to the facts.. one doesnt want to 'hold on to time' they want the on-going moments to last forever..wich can by holding on to the MEMORIES..! he has tlkd bout 'THAT' by callin moments n memories to be held (wich can never though) in the palm of ur hands.. !such IMMENSE things.. jus in a grasp..a clench..a clutch.. just a hold.. ! "..And Eternity in an hour.".. --to hold the hours of Lifetime and beyond.. in just one hour.. !! His profound metamorphical statements.. just leaves me spellbound..-- he so easily in few words tlkd bout how an eternity can b held in an hour.. how beautifully devised a feeling of innocent happiness can be.. that.. it comes to us.. it leaves us with the feeling of been
'holding astonishmnts..emotions.. 'Sentiences' .. in few instants..!! he's tlkin bout SUCH unfanthomed sentients.. ..the happiness we should be looking fr in such resplendent..and undistinguished .. n innocet things.. n moments..
Reply:I answered this a few weeks ago - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...
Allow me to quote myself. (This is Quotations, after all.) -
Blake is expressing a mystical belief that the microcosm (the small scale) symbolizes the macrocosm (the large scale) and that it's possible to experience the macrocosm by contemplation of the microcosm.
In other words, when you view a grain of sand correctly, you really see the whole world in a kind of mystical vision. When you view a wild flower with your whole being, with all your senses, you really do see heaven.
From this perspective, the palm of your hand is as large as infinity and an hour is as long as eternity.
Reply:Sand is often a euphanism for time, and if you truly never saw or touched a flower the awe could be over-whelming, infinity is in the acknowledgement of gratitude that surrounds us, and eternity, all the happiness in the world can be acknowledged in an hour.
It sounds simplistic, but every 5 seconds a day a child dies of starvation, which takes around two painful weeks. That is an eternity, and where there is famine there are no flowers, sand is an enemy and infinity is pain.
Reply:I don't know but it sounds good
Reply:hope this helps... YOur lines are from a poem called "Auguries of Innocence"
The poem "Auguries of Innocence" is a poem full of paradoxes. It brings up
situations that are unfathomable in our realm of human understanding. Our
minds are capable of many things, but not all things are readily understandable.
One such paradox is the idea of holding infinity in a finite space. Infinity
is also an idea that is not tangible or able to be felt, thus it cannot be
held in side of anything, especially our hands. Another paradox in this poem is
very much alike the above mentioned. It too has to do with a humanly
ungraspable concept. The ability to hold an immeasurable amount of time within an
hour, which can be measured, is in the human mind impossible. This poem presents
many interesting ideas. All of the situations may be possible but are almost
impossible to be understood. This shows that the human mind is not the
ultimate thinking machine. It also shows that not every thing is meant to be
understood. However if we look at this from a different angle one can see that
maybe it takes time for human knowledge to develop and obtain a higher
understanding of life and nature.
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