A world in a grain of sand,
Heaven in a flower.
Holding infinity in both hands,
Moment is eternity.
The above four lines are the first four lines of the long poem "The Omen of Innocence". The author's name is william blake (william blake 1757- 1827), and he is also a watercolor painter and printmaker. Interestingly, although the first four sentences of this poem are household names, the whole poem is not among Blake's representative works, and it is rarely discussed by critics.
It means that everything in life is made up of details. If everything is in order, it will be the details that determine success or failure.
Full text of poetry:
See a world in a grain of sand.
There is a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
Eternity will melt in an hour.
A robin in a cage
Let the whole heaven fall into anger.
A loft full of pigeons and pigeons.
The whole area is shaking.
A dog stared at the master's door.
It indicates the destruction of the country.
A horse was misused on the road.
Call for human blood to heaven.
Every cry of the hunted hare
The fibers in the brain will tear.
A lark with a broken wing,
An angel stopped singing.
Cockfighting ready for battle
Will the rising sun be afraid?
The howl of every wolf and lion
Awaken a person's soul from hell.
Wild deer wander around,
Keep the human soul away from worry.
Misus the lamb will breed public conflicts,
But forgave the butcher knife.
Bats passing by at dusk
Has left the brain that will not believe.
Owl calling for the night
Spoke the fears of unbelievers.
Who would hurt a little wren?
Will never be loved by men.
The man who angered the cow has gone.
Will never be loved by women.
A dissolute boy who kills flies
Will feel the hostility of spiders.
A person who tortures scarab elves
Weave a gazebo in endless nights.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeat your mother's sadness to you.
Don't kill moths and butterflies,
Because the final judgment is near.
Who will train horses to fight?
Never get past the polar bar.
Beggars' dogs and widows' cats,
Feed them and you will get fat.
Little insects singing summer songs
Poison comes from a slanderous tongue.
The venom of snakes and salamanders.
It's the sweat of jealous feet.
Bee toxin
It is the artist's jealousy.
The prince's robe and the beggar's rags
There are poisonous bacteria on the miser's bag.
The truth told with malicious intent.
Better than all the lies you can make up.
This is right, it should be;
People are born for happiness and sadness;
When we realize this correctly,
We crossed the world safely.
Joy and sadness are well woven,
The clothes of the holy soul.
Under every sadness and haggard
Bring joy with a silky string.
A baby is not just a belt in its infancy;
In all these human lands;
Tools are made and born by hand,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear in every eye
Become an eternal baby;
This was captured by a clever female,
Return to its own happiness.
Baa baa, growl, growl,
It's the waves that beat the coast of heaven.
A baby crying down there
Write revenge in the field of death.
Beggar's rags, fluttering in the air,
Will tear the sky to pieces.
Soldiers, armed with swords and guns,
Paralysis attacked the summer sun.
The poor man is worthless.
More than all the gold on the coast of Africa.
Twist a coin out of the director's hand.
Land that will buy and sell misers;
Or, if protected,
The whole country is buying and selling
A person who laughs at baby beliefs.
Will be laughed at in old age and death.
Who should teach children to doubt?
Rotting graves will never come out.
A person who respects the baby's beliefs.
Defeated hell and death.
Children's toys and old people's reasons
It is the fruit of two seasons.
The questioner, sitting so sly,
I will never know how to answer.
One who answers questions.
Put out the light of knowledge.
The strongest poison known.
From Caesar's laurel.
Nothing can transform human beings.
It's like an iron bracket of armor.
When gold and precious stones decorate the plow,
The art of peace should envy bowing.
A riddle, or the cry of a cricket,
Is to doubt an appropriate answer.
Emmett's inches and eagle's miles.
Make lame philosophy smile.
People who doubt what they see.
Never believe, do what you want.
If the sun and the moon doubt,
They will go out at once.
Passion is something you can do,
But if you have passion in your heart, that's not good.
Prostitutes and gamblers, by the state
Permission to build the destiny of that country.
Prostitutes peddle in the street.
Will weave rolls of old England.
The cry of the winner, the curse of the loser,
Dancing in front of the dead English hearse.
Every night and every morning
Some unfortunate people were born,
Every morning and evening.
Some people are born sweet and happy.
Some people are born sweet and happy,
Some people are born for endless nights.
We are led to believe lies.
When we don't look through our eyes,
Born overnight, destroyed overnight,
When the soul sleeps in the light beam.
God appeared, and God was light.
For those poor souls who live at night;
But will a human figure show it?
For those who live in the daytime.
Whole poem translation:
Naive prophecy
William Blake
Peep into the world from a grain of sand.
Looking for heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.
In an instant, it becomes eternity.
When truth is used maliciously
Worse than all the lies made up.
That is the reality.
People are born to face happiness and pain.
As long as you can understand this.
We won't get hurt again.
Weave happiness and sadness.
Put it on my sacred heart.
A coin in the poor man's hand.
Worth all the gold on the African coast.
A penny smashed from the workers.
You can buy all the land of the miser
If you are protected by God,
You can even buy and sell all the land.
Who ever laughed at pure faith?
He will be laughed at by years and death.
Who wants to shake the belief of innocence?
He will be buried in a stale grave forever.
Who can respect pure faith?
He will conquer hell and death.
If you don't believe your eyes,
Never know how to trust, please follow your heart.
If the sun and the moon are suspicious
They will disappear in an instant.
Surrounded by passion, you can have beauty.
Lust can lead to self-loss.
Every night, every morning
Some people are born sad for misfortune.
Every morning, every night
Some people are born to be embraced by happiness.
Some people are born to be embraced by happiness.
Some people are born surrounded by long nights.
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes,
We will believe the lies.
Lies are born and die in the dark.
The soul sleeps in the light
For people struggling in the dark
God shines.
For people who live in the daytime,
God became human nature.
Poetry appreciation:
Hold infinity and eternity in an instant.
A world in a grain of sand, a heaven in a flower,
One tree, one bodhi, one leaf and one Buddha.
Naive prophecy, understand the words of the Millennium.
In the fragrance, you realize the mystery of life.
In the classical language theory of traditional Buddhism, there is a famous saying: "A flower is the world and a leaf is bodhi". A flower can see the whole world, and a leaf can represent the whole bodhi tree. Buddhism is a profound knowledge, and many profound philosophies are beyond the reach of our growing young minds. Similarly, I can only make some shallow guesses about this famous saying that often haunts my ears.
At the same time, there is not only the idea of "one flower, one world, one leaf and one bodhi" in traditional Buddhism. As early as18th century, the great English romantic poet Blake wrote in a poem entitled "Innocent Hints": "See a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower." I think, whether it is Buddhism's "one flower, one world, one leaf, one bodhi" or literature's "one sand, one world, one day", their meanings should be roughly the same!
"One sand, one world, one flower, one day" is an eternal primitive philosophy of life.
For all of us, life should be endless and matter will develop forever. However, in the rotation of celestial bodies and the cycle of years, we clearly see that the single life owned by each individual is thin and powerless in the cycle of time and space, and our individual is probably not as small as a drop in the ocean in the universe. However, the living do not want to die, even if it is pain, they also hope. So one person's hope for another is the hope of two people, the hope of two people to continue is the hope of one nation, the hope of one nation for another is the hope of two peoples, and the hope of two peoples to continue is the hope of all mankind and the whole universe. As individuals and self-individuals, hope is humble, but several humble wings of hope are condensed together, which is the great vitality of a species. The individual of human beings is updated from generation to generation, and the history of human beings is unfolding day by day. How many dynasties rise and fall around us? How many civilizations have risen and fallen before our eyes? However, the species of life has crossed the barrier of time and space and stubbornly continued.
"Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and let eternity collect moments" is the original witness of the eternal existence of life. Limited human individuals can weave infinite human history; The infinite space-time universe can be measured by the limited ups and downs of life, and the eternal pen can record the changes of human civilization.
History books can withstand the vicissitudes of time. When the wheel of history runs over the footprint of human development, countless civilizations will bloom on both sides of the road; When the cosmic dust settles on these civilizations, another beautiful spring is about to take shape. If so, whether the concepts of finite and infinite are interchangeable may not matter at all. Then, finiteness will be an endless cycle of time and space, but infinity is a powerful fetter in the depths of human soul. When there is no boundary between finite and infinite, there is no eternity and collection for human beings, let alone individual life and death. This is the real realm of "one flower, one world, one leaf and one bodhi".
From its unchanging point of view, things are infinite to me.
"To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower" is the full confidence and freedom of human life, which is the reason for the origin of a vast species. From the life of a humble individual, we can clearly see the vitality of the whole species, but this is precisely "put infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an instant."
Such a poem, when seen here, should be regarded as an eulogy of self-confidence and freedom in life, but its title is "Naive omen". What does the author mean by "naivety"? Since then, the meaning is not very different? Is it the author's implicit ridicule of life or his helpless masturbation of official career? I'm afraid I can't guess, because my understanding of Blake is only at the level of words. I only know that Blake hates the great philosopher Bacon and thinks that the great poet Wordsworth is "not a poet, but a cult philosopher who is hostile to all real poetry and inspiration." Both sides are romantics and realists, and their ideological differences can be seen. And we can also get some clues from Blake's other poem "Sand": "Laugh, laugh, Voltaire Rousseau, laugh, laugh, but all in vain. You throw sand at the wind and the wind blows it back. " However, if we want to truly understand Blake's original ideas more deeply, we need a deeper dual accumulation of history and literature.