{"id":6661,"date":"2016-02-10T22:35:31","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T22:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=6661"},"modified":"2016-02-09T22:40:36","modified_gmt":"2016-02-09T22:40:36","slug":"william-and-catherine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=6661","title":{"rendered":"William and Catherine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blake<\/a><\/p>\n

From an account of visiting Blake’s grave in the Sunday New York Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Death has mellowed him,\u2019\u2019 my friend David Winner told me. He too once had a comforting encounter with Blake, which he recounts in his book \u2018\u2018Those Feet: A Sensual History of English Soccer.\u2019\u2019 (The title is from the hymn \u2018\u2018Jerusalem,\u2019\u2019 whose words come from Blake\u2019s preface to his epic poem \u2018\u2018Milton.\u2019\u2019) A day after David decided on that name, he boarded a random London bus on a whim, disembarking on \u2018\u2018a dull street full of noisy traffic and boring buildings.\u2019\u2019 He spotted what he thought was a park in the distance. \u2018\u2018As I walked down the central path, the sound of traffic fell away,\u2019\u2019 David writes. \u2018\u2018I became aware of birdsong and greenery and trees covered with blossom.\u2019\u2019 He continues: \u2018\u2018The path led into a more open space, with a grassy field. I slowed. I stopped. I looked down and found that I was standing beside the grave of William Blake.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

And then, David told me, \u2018\u2018it was as if he\u2019d laid his hand gently on my shoulder. I\u2019ve never felt anything like it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

One of the first things I noticed about Blake\u2019s grave is that it isn\u2019t exactly Blake\u2019s grave. The inscription on the stone tells us that he and his wife, Catherine, are buried nearby<\/em>. He was laid to rest in a cheap, common plot: Three people were already buried under him, and in time four more would lie above. Bunhill is said to be a corruption of \u2018\u2018bone hill\u2019\u2019; it is essentially a potter\u2019s field formed as much by ideology as poverty, the final home of religious Nonconformists and other upstarts.
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