Catch no Ball

My first introduction to this poem - Auguries of Innocence - was some years ago where the first four lines were shown on the discovery channel as a teaser.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."

Wah..so profound, so beautiful. It was only a couple of days ago that I came across the full poem and the title. I do wonder if this is a well-known poem ; don't know cos never got much exposure to Lit. I was a science student and had cleverly selected geography over literature. My literature sucked; my perceptibility was highly under-developed then. At least with geography, there is no guesswork, I know if I studied. With Lit, even if I studied, I still don't know. Know what I mean, No?

So now looking at the full poem, beyond the four lines, the rest of it is like a bag of childhood delights that conjures up all sorts of strange and wonderful imaginery but somehow just falls beyond my grasp of full comprehension. Perhaps William Blake was not really trying to say anything, he was just toying with the words like a clever game? To me it is like, you know how, when you study Chinese, each character on the line makes sense to you but try and decipher the whole line with all the characters together, the meanings seems to make sense but yet, not quite make sense gelled.