A Conversational Fancy Between Messrs. Wm. Stafford & Wm. Blake

William Stafford (1914-1993)

Blake:  "Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air; Hungry clouds swag over the deep."

Stafford: "Achilles laments by the sea; Odysseus wavers before the wind; Don Quixote thinks in a cracked helmet."

Blake: "Once meek, and in a perilous path, the just man kept his course along the vale of death."

William Blake (1757-1827)

Stafford: "A box arrived. It said 'Any side up.'"

Blake: "Roses are planted where thorns grow, and on the barren heath sing the honey bees."

Stafford: "Beat your megaphones into ear trumpets ."

Blake: "Without contraries there is no progression."

Stafford: "About the pessimists: how can they know that much?"

Blake: "From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil."

Stafford: "We survive by our limitations"

Blake: "All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following errors:"

Stafford: "All errors are errors of taste."

Blake: "That Man has two real existing principles: Viz: a Body & a Soul;

Stafford: "Anything said implies the kind of speaker who would say that."

Blake: "That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies."

Stafford: "The Gospel Is Whatever Happens"

Blake: "Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy."
 
Stafford: "The golden bough grows from your hand."

Blake: "Energy is Eternal Delight."

Stafford: "If it happens to me, it's all right."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 1

Blake: "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained;"

Stafford: "I'll dance with anyone---royalty, comers, but especially refugees."

Blake: "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he rote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it."

Stafford: "Bright lights create sharp shadows."

Blake: "As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius;"

Stafford: "A scholar applies a rule; an artist follows a lead."

Blake: "which to Angels look like torment and insanity."

Stafford: "No dreams but the one: 'reality.'"

Blake "I collected some of their Proverbs: thinking that as the sayings used in a nation, mark its character."

Stafford: "In Oregon the coyotes are still the best poets."

Blake: "How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?"

Stafford: "All events and experiences are local somewhere."

Blake: "In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. "

Daily writing, March 17, 1956

Stafford: "It's dirt makes a garden." 

Blake: "Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead."

Stafford: "Every mink has a mink coat."

Blake: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."

Stafford: "Lost pioneers were the ones who found the best valleys."

Blake: "Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity."

Stafford: "Off a high place, it is courtesy to let others go first." 

Blake: "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."

Stafford: "Before you hear the music, you do the dance."

Blake: "The cut worm forgives the plow."

Stafford: "By bending, the grass develops a surface." 

Blake: "Dip him in the river who loves water."

Stafford: "Yes, I've been thinking quite a bit recently. But there are still a few things I haven't thought of yet."

Blake: "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 8

Stafford: "An owl needs dark to see."

Blake: "He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star."

Stafford: "Trees do not demand any response, whatever their stance."

Blake: "Eternity is in love with the productions of time."

Stafford: "Believing our way, we find."

Blake: "The busy bee has no time for sorrow."

Stafford: "The wars we haven't had saved many lives."

Blake: "The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure."

Stafford: "Anyway, history has me in it."

Blake: "All wholsome food is caught without a net or a trap."

Stafford: "I say craft eats innocence."

Blake: "Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth."

Stafford: "How shall the lion feed if the deer be saved?"

Blake: "No bird soars too high. if he soars with his own wings."

Stafford: "Arrows punish a bow." 

Blake: "The most sublime act is to set another before you."

Stafford: "Meeting cement is never easy."

Blake: "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise"

Stafford: "If there is a trail, you have taken the wrong turn."

Blake: "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."

Stafford: "Forced language reveals its forcing."

Documentary copy, 1951, William Stafford

Blake: "The lust of the goat is the bounty of God."

Stafford: "The jaguar at the dance; a silken leash." 

Blake: "Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

Stafford: "Velvet feels black."

Blake: "The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword. are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man."

Stafford: "When he saw the leopard jump, he knew he was poor."

Blake: "The fox condemns the trap, not himself."

Stafford: "Successful people are in a rut."

Blake: "Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep. "

Stafford: "I have spells of desire to tell the truth."

Blake: "The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship."

Stafford: "Many things true when said, the world makes untrue."

Blake: "What is now proved was once, only imagin'd."

Stafford: "Now is made of ghosts."

Blake: "The cistern contains: the fountain overflows"

Stafford: "When you fear winter, summer is over

Blake: "A dead body revenges not injuries."

Stafford: "The arrow tells what the archer meant to say."

Blake: "Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. "

Stafford: "There is such a thing as helping history to get along with its dirty work."

Blake: "The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow."

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 12

Stafford: "There might be someone so successful you wouldn't know it."

Blake: "The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the Lion.

Stafford: "Faith is easy, doubt is hard."

Blake: "Think in the morning, Act in the noon, Eat in the evening, Sleep in the night."

Stafford: "Between the roar, the lion purrs."

Blake: "He who has sufferd you to impose on him knows you."

Stafford: "Kierkegaard said, 'Drink from your own well.""

Blake: "As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers."

Stafford: "It's not the the sound of an ax that cuts the tree."

Blake: "The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction."

Stafford: "The stream is always revising."

Blake: "You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough."

Stafford: "Recant whenever you can."

Blake: "If others had not been foolish. we should be so."

Stafford: "Come, be human. Let's sit down and talk."

Further Reading

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake, with introduction and commentary by Sir Geoffrey Keynes. (Oxford University Press, 1975). Originally composed between 1790 and 1793 in London and published by Blake himself.

Not the Sound of the Ax: Aphorisms and Poems by William Stafford, ed. by Vincent Wixon and Paul Merchant (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014 [forthcoming]).

The conversation between Robert Bly and William Stafford is from William Stafford and Robert Bly: A Literary Friendship, a film by Haydn Reiss (Magnolia Films, 1994). Used by permission of Haydn Reiss."

[ed. note. Special thanks to Kim Stafford, and to Jeremy Skinner of the Special Collections at Lewis & Clark College.]