A Divine Image

It is evident that Mr. Blake has no problem satirizing even his own work. This can be seen in "A Divine Image" and "The Divine Image". "The Divine Image", which is found in Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, is a poem which compares human beings to a divine entity, such as Jesus Christ. William Blake makes a point that qualities such as mercy, pity, peace, and love are naturally found in the human condition. He personifies these traits and compares to the human heart, face, form, and dress. This is pretty positive as you get the sense that Blake really admires the human race. "A Divine Image", however, comes from a different point of view. This latter poem clearly mocks the former. Instead of positive qualities and traits, he uses negative qualities such as cruelty, jealousy, terror, and secrecy to describe human nature. Just like the former poem, he personifies these traits with the human heart, face, form, and dress. He clearly does not regard human beings so highly anymore. This poem is ironic, however, as he is describing how far from divine humans really are in a poem titled simply as "A Divine Image".