Imprisoned in some nameless jail
and, like ten thousand inmates pale,
I counted time I could not feel,
I stood on head, and then on heel.
So turn and turn again about,
like other tortured souls I shout;
yet am not heard, my temples pound,
beneath life’s torrents am I drowned!
Ignored am I, like one and all,
save for the early morning call
that shakes us from our torpor, aye,
and then we fall like hail from sky.
Inevitably down through time
we are mere specks, as dust and grime,
yet in our falling purge our sin,
our labours end, then re-begin.
For lost are we within this sphere,
for all eternity, I fear!
A universe where all are ******;
we are the Timer’s grains of sand.
For William Blake