Lyric Poem · Love

A Divine Image

by William Blake

Cruelty has a human heart,

And Jealousy a human face;

Terror the human form divine,

And Secresy the human dress.

The human dress is forged iron,

The human form a fiery forge,

The human face a furnace sealed,

The human heart its hungry gorge.

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“A Divine Image” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/a-divine-image

Quick facts

Poem: A Divine Image
Poet: William Blake
Length: 8 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Short Poems
Themes: Love, Peace, Short

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 8 lines · 2 quatrains
Line length: Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record: William Blake1757–1827
Source record: PoetryDBA Divine Image by william-blake, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 d88362185a2993e4…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Short Poems Love Peace Short

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