Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The Fly

The Fly is a poem by William Blake.

The Fly

Little fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Had brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

In the poem, a little fly loses its life to a hand.  Though a fly and a human may initially seem very different, the author suggests they are similar.  The human is similar to the fly in the sense that they both dance, drink and sing.  Also, they shall both die but will not know the moment.  Death will come blindly.

William Blake also writes that life is to think, to live and to be strong, and the absence of thought is death. Like the fly, the human lives happily and loses all thought at the moment of death.  Though the human and the fly may seem very different, in many ways they are quite similar.


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