EARTH'S ANSWER
by: William Blake

Earth rais'd up her head
From the darkness dread & drear.
Her light fled,
Stony dread!
And her locks covered with grey despair.

"Prison'd on wat'ry shore,
Starry Jealousy does keep my den:
Cold and hoar,
Weeping o'er,
I hear the father of the ancient men.

"Selfish father of men!
Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!
Can delight,
Chain'd in night,
The virgins of youth and morning bear?

"Does spring hide its joy
When buds and blossoms grow?
Does the sower
Sow by night,
Or the plowman in darkness plow?

"Break this heavy chain
That does freeze my bones around.
Selfish! vain!
Eternal bane!
That free Love with bondage bound."

(http://www.uh.edu/engines/romanticism/blakesongsexperience.html)
In Blake's poem he illustrates how nature is alive and has feelings and emotiona just as people do. Blake describes in his poem how man should work together with nature and live peicefully with nature, and not destroy it to put up their creations and buildings. This peom illustrates two basic priniciples of romanticism, to live peacefully among nature and to always respect its beauty.

Other Romantic Poets and Their Works
Images and information below from http://www.uh.edu/engines/romanticism/index.html

William Blake
Biographical Info
Born: 1757
Died: 1827

Essay: //The "Mind-forg'd Manacles" of Blake's Poetry//

Blake's Illustrations
The Ancient of Days by William Blake
The Ancient of Days by William Blake
Major Works
Songs of Innocence


Biographical Info
Born: 1795
Died: 1821
John Keats
John Keats
Major Works
Endymion: A Poetic Romance (1818)
Hyperion (1820)
The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (1820)
The Eve of St. Agnes (1820)
La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1820)
Ode to A Nightingale (1820)
Ode on a Grecian Urn (1820)
Lamia (1819 / 1856)

Biographical Info
Born: 1788
Died: 1824
(1812)  From an engraving by H. Meyer of a portrait by George Sanders
(1812) From an engraving by H. Meyer of a portrait by George Sanders
Major Works
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
Manfred (1817)
Don Juan (1824)
She Walks In Beauty (1815)

Biographical Info
Born: 1792
Died: 1822
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Major Works:
Mont Blanc (1817)
Hymn To Intellectual Beauty (1817)
Prometheus Unbound (1820)
Ode To The West Wind (1820)
To A Skylark (1820)
Ozymandias (1818)
Epipsychidon (1821)
Adonais: An Ellegy on the Death of John Keats (1821)
The Triumph of Life (1824)
A Defence of Poetry (1821 / 1840)

Biographical Info
Born: 1772
Died: 1834
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Major Works
Lyrical Ballads (1798, 1800)
  • "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
    Conversation Poems
  • "The Eolian Harp" (1795)
  • "This Lime-tree Bower My Prison" (1797)
  • "Frost At Midnight" (1798)
    Kubla Khan (1798)
    Christabel (1801)
    Dejection: An Ode (1802)
William Wordsworth
Biographical Info
Born: 1770
Died: 1850
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
external image insert_table.gif

Major Works
Lyrical Ballads (1798, with Preface, 1800)
  • "Tintern Abbey"
  • "We Are Seven"
  • "Lines Written In Early Spring"
    The Prelude (1799, 1805, 1850)
    Resolution and Independence (1807) Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood (1807)