- Title:
- 'This King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace' (Page 63)
- 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 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches (42.5 x 31.8 cm), Plate: 16 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches (41.3 x 31.8 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
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:
- B1992.8.10(29)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- beard | literary theme | man | paper | religious and mythological subject | scroll (information artifact) | text
- 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:3558
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
YCBA Collections Search
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827, British, 'This King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace' (Page 63), 1797
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