Seek for kind relief

News came yesterday morning that Pope Francis I, the first Latin American to be elected pontiff, died. He was 88 and had been in the role since 2013.

Francis (Born Jorge Mario Bergolio in Buenos Aires, Argentina) was a Vatican insider’s nightmare: a Jesuit and a man who believed in the teachings of Christ. You know—the teachings about the meek, the poor and the merciful. His progressive views on social issues (climate change effects on the environment, accountability and reconciliation for the multitude of priest-involved sexual abuse scandals, the place of women in church and society) made him a target of conservative clerics, and his ability to drive actual reform in Roman Catholic operations was limited. But he put a new face on the Church, and on the whole it was a benevolent, loving and compassionate one.

Which, of course, enraged that entire class of self-identified Christians who have sold their birthright for the mess of pottage that is right-wing racist, misogynistic fascism.

It’s very sad that one of Francis’s last acts on this plane was to pose for a photo op with an avatar of that right-wing faux Christian attention whore crowd, JD Vance. (Although he delegated the actual conversation with the thug to his Secretary of State, Pietro Cardinal Parolin. Who proceeded to give JD a lecture on compassion.) Pretty sure the Pontiff did not need the tsuris, and not entirely certain that the stress didn’t contribute to his demise.

Still, in honor of the compassionate pope, let’s have a poem for NPM today from William Blake. Blake, whose life spanned the time when the landscape of Britain was literally and metaphorically being changed by the Industrial Revolution, wasn’t a poet by trade. He was an printmaker, who painted and wrote poetry on the side. Basically home schooled, he learned to read well enough to rip through the Bible every which way, and he learned to appreciate art by engraving copies of classical drawings.

From these humble beginnings he grew into a powerful poet/artist who took on highly metaphysical subjects in both those forms. He was a Dissenter in both religion and artistic style, despising, for example, the works of Joshua Reynolds.

“On Another’s Sorrow”

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no!  never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear –

And not sit beside the next,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

©2025 Bas Bleu