- Title:
- 'Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue' (Page 7)
- Part Of:
- Date:
- 1797
- Materials & Techniques:
- Etching, engraving, and letterpress on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
- Dimensions:
- Sheet: 16 3/8 × 12 3/4 inches (41.6 × 32.4 cm), Binding: 16 3/8 inches (41.6 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "7 | How richly were my noontide trances hung | With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys, | Joy behind joy, in endless perspective! | *Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue | Calls daily for his millions at a meal, | Starting I 'woke, and found myself undone. | Where's now my frenzy's pompous furniture? | The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall | Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me: | The spider's most attenuated thread, | Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie | On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze. | O ye blest scenes of permanent delight! | Full, above measure! lasting, beyond bound! | A perpetuity of bliss, is bliss. | Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end, | That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, | And quite unparadise the realms of light. | Safe are you lodged above these rolling spheres; | The baleful influence of whose giddy dance | Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath. | Here teems with revolutions every hour, | And rarely for the better; or the best, | More mortal than the common births of fate: | Each moment has its sickle, emulous | Of time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep | Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays | His little weapon in the narrower sphere | Of sweet domestick comfort, and cuts down | The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss."; lower left: "inv. & sc | WB"; lower left: "Pubd. June 27, 1796, by R. Edwards, No. 142 New Bond Street."
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1978.43.1345
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:2264
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
William Blake - His Art & Times (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1982-12-03 - 1983-02-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
William Blake - His Art & Times (Yale Center for British Art, 1982-09-15 - 1982-11-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]