Sunday, November 15, 2009

“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower ” - What does this sentence mean?

Could you explain this sentence?

“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower ” - What does this sentence mean?
You quoted only part of the sentence. Here's the whole thing. It's the first stanza of the poem "Auguries of Innocence" by the mystical poet William Blake (1757 - 1827):





To see a world in a grain of sand


And a heaven in a wild flower,


Hold infinity in the palm of your hand


And eternity in an hour.





Blake is expressing a mystical belief that the microcosm (the small scale) symbolizes the macrocosm (the large scale) and that it's possible to experience the macrocosm by contemplation of the microcosm.





In other words, when you view a grain of sand correctly, you really see the whole world in a kind of mystical vision. When you view a wild flower with your whole being, with all your senses, you really do see heaven.





From this perspective, the palm of your hand is as large as infinity and an hour is as long as eternity.
Reply:You can do something big with something that may seem insignificant. Men have changed the world with simple ideas.


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