Self and Soul A Defense of Ideals

The Poet 211

The Cabinet is formd of Gold

And Pearl & Crystal shining bright

And within it opens into a World

And a little lovely Moony Night

Another England there I saw

Another London with its Tower

Another Thames & other Hills

And another pleasant Surrey Bower

Another Maiden like herself

Translucent lovely shining clear.

(488)

The young poet enters the Crystal Cabinet, which is the bejeweled
world of luxury and also the delightful world of sexual intercourse.
And when he does, everything is enchanted; the world takes on a
soft pleasing sheen. When the poet traverses London now he doesn’t
sees how the chimney sweeper’s cry appalls the church or how the
soldier’s sigh runs in blood down the walls of the palace. That (very
accurate) nightmare vision has been replaced by the kind of soft de-
lusion that Keats’s knight at arms experiences in “La Belle Dame.”
Both are reveling in what Freud would call “the cure through love.”
Both are being caught in delusional, pleasure- loving Eros. But Freud
does not admit to there being any other kind of love. Keats senses
that there is, and Blake boldly asserts it.
To the Romantic poet, love has a double power. It is that
which inspires, but also that which deludes and oppresses. Says
Blake

Let us agree to give up Love

And root up the infernal grove