- Title:
- 'This King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace' (Page 63)
- 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: "63 | To dust when drop proud nature's proudest spheres, | And live entire: death is the crown of life; | Were death denied, poor man would live in vain; | Were death denied, to live would not be life; | Were death denied, even fools would wish to die: | Death wounds to cure: we fall, we rise, we reign! | Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies | Where blooming Eden withers in our sight. | Death gives us more than was in Eden lost; | *This KING OF TERRORS is the PRINCE OF PEACE. | When shall I die to vanity, pain, death? | When shall I die?--when shall I live for ever?"; lower left: "inv & sc | WB"; Lettered on facing page: "62 | With wreath triumphant: death is victory; | It binds in chains the raging ills of life: | Lust and ambition, wrath and avarice, | Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power. | That ills corrosive, cares importunate | Are not immortal too, O death! is thine. | Our day of dissolution!--name it right | 'Tis our great pay-day, 'tis our harvest rich | And ripe: what though the sickle, sometimes keen, | Just scars us as we reap the golden grain; | More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound. | Birth's feeble cry, and death's deep dismal groan | Are slender tributes low-tax'd nature pays | For mighty gain: the gain of each, a life! | But O! the last former so transcends, | Life dies compared! life lives beyond the grave. | And feel I, death! no joy from thought of thee? | Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires | With nobler thought, and fairer deed! | Death, the deliverer, who rescues man! | Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns! | Death, that absolves my birth, a curse without it! | Rich death, that realizes all my cares, | Toils, virtues, hopes;--without it a chimera! | Death, of all pain the period, not of joy; | Joy's source and subject still subsist unhurt, | One in my soul, and one in her great sire; | Though the four winds were warring for my dust: | Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night, | Though prison'd there, my dust too I reclaim,"
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1978.43.1367
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:2290
- 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]