Monday Poetry: The Divine Image

Keeping with last week's entry from William Blake's Songs of Innocence, here is his poem about the Divine image in all of us.

This is particularly important for me since, I begin many of my classes by asking my students, "Tu es quid?" ("What are you?")  to which they respond "Factus sum in imagionem Dei."  ("I am made in the image of God.")

And while the last stanza may sound a bit politically incorrect, it is actually a wonderful call for charity in his day.

The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
An to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every dime
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.