poem

Divine Image — Aug 26, 2026

William Blake

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To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is God our Father dear;
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine;
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine:
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew.
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too.

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📖 About this poem

Blake's "Divine Image" makes a simple, radical claim: God isn't found above the clouds but inside human kindness itself. Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love aren't abstract virtues here — they're given bodies. Mercy gets a heart, Pity a face, Love the whole human form, Peace even a set of clothes. That image of Peace as "the human dress" is striking; it suggests calm isn't some inner glow but something you wear outwardly, visible to others.

The poem moves with hymn-like simplicity — short lines, steady rhythm, repeated phrases — because it was meant to sound like something a congregation might actually sing. That plainness is deceptive, though, since its final stanza quietly dismantles religious boundaries, insisting that Turk, Jew, and "heathen" alike share this divine human core. Centuries later, that inclusive leap still feels startlingly modern.