How Great Thy Use

11 X 17 Inches
3-color Screen Print
Created in 2024

$30

*This print is 11 x 17 inches. Click here for the 5.5 x 8 inches How Great Thy Use

This passage is from a wonderful story/poem by William Blake. In it, a young maiden named Thel is lamenting her mortality and in an effort to make sense of it, she talks to several other characters, The Lilly of the Valley (a small flower), a cloud, a worm, and a clod of dirt. She then passes into the underworld of the dead. After finding her own grave and more unsettling, existential questions, she shrieks and escapes back to her familiar valley and to her familiar mind.

The particular passage on this print is from the conversation she has with the Cloud. She recognizes the gift that the cloud offers to the world when it dies, in the form of rain, but she sees no purpose for herself when she dies:

“Without a use this shining woman liv’d,
Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?”

And the cloud responds by saying,

“Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing! Every thing that lives, Lives not alone, nor for itself; fear not, and I will call
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.”

It’s a great piece. I recommend it! To read the full piece CLICK HERE!