- Title:
- 'Like that, the dial speaks; and points to thee' (Page 33)
- Part Of:
- Date:
- 1797
- Materials & Techniques:
- Etching, line engraving, and letterpress, with hand coloring in watercolor on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
- Dimensions:
- Spine: 17 1/2 inches (44.5 cm), Sheet: 16 1/2 x 12 7/8 inches (41.9 x 32.7 cm), Plate: 16 x 12 5/8 inches (40.6 x 32.1 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered on facing page: "32 | And how they might have borne more welcome news: | Their answers form what men experience call; | If wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe. | O reconcile them! kind experience cries, | 'There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs; | 'The more our joy, the more we know it vain; | 'And by success are tutor'd to despair'. | Nor is it only thus, but must be so: | Who knows not this, though gray, is still a child: | Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, | Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. | Art thou so moor'd thou canst not disengage, | Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes? | Since, by life's passing breath, blown up from earth, | Light, as the summer's dust, we take in air | A moment's giddy flight, and fall again; | Join the dull mass, increase the trodden soil, | And sleep 'till earth herself shall be no more; | Since then, as emmets, their small world o'erthrown, | We, sore amazed, from out earth's ruins crawl, | And rise to fate extreme of foul or fair, | As man's own choice, controller of the skies! | As man's despotic will, perhaps one hour | O how omnipotent is time! decrees; | Should not each warning give a strong alarm-- | Warning, far less than that of bosom torn | From bosom, bleeding o'er the sacred dead? | Should not each dial strike us as we pass, | Portentous, as the written wall which struck, | O'er midnight bowls, the proud Assyrian pale,"
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.10(19)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- bed | cup | dead | death | food | goblet | literary theme | man | men | pointing | religious and mythological subject | serpent | snake | wine | wine-glasses | woman
- Access:
- Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3547
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
YCBA Collections Search
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827, British, 'Like that, the dial speaks; and points to thee' (Page 33), 1797
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