No free man needs a God; but was I free? How fully I felt nature glued to me And how my childish palate loved the taste Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste! My picture book was at an early age The painted parchment papering our cage: Mauve rings around the moon; blood-orange sun; Twinned Iris; and that rare phenomenon The iridule - when, beautiful and strange, In a bright sky above a mountain range One opal cloudlet in an oval form Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm Which in a distant valley has been staged -For we are most artistically caged. Vladimir Nabokov
About This Quote

In the opening stanzas of his poem “No Free Man Needs a God”, William Blake tells of how he was born into a life of bondage. Not the kind of bondage that one experiences in middle school or high school where you are forced to go to class or eat lunch, but the real thing. He was born into the life of a slave. He was born into the chain gang.

He was born into an existence where he had no freedom at all. But he didn’t have to be trapped in that way. He could have taken up arms against his master and turned himself into a free man.

Instead, he chose to embrace his shackles, polish them up and make them shine just as if they were gold chains. This is what is most beautiful about being free. When you can be yourself, when you are free to be who you are meant to be, then you are most beautiful.

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