An Angel's Song

This morning I am freshly caught by surprise as I read again one of William Blake’s terse, dense, deceptively simple, mystical poems.

A Robin Red Breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage
A skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing.
--William Blake

At first my thoughts go to God’s love for his creation. A robin is beautiful, and nineteenth century English poets valued the song of the skylark above all others. In his own poetry, Shelley longed to express “half the gladness” of the skylark’s song. Yet Jesus said that his Father even notices the death of a sparrow. This speaks hope for all in a time where the natural world is often disrespected and millions of humans die unnoticed by other humans. Jesus says they are noticed by their Heavenly Father.

However, this poem is obviously a metaphor beyond God’s care for physical life. Blake speaks powerfully in contrasts: a raging heaven and silence among the angels. I agree with Macrina Wiederkehr. Heaven rages and angels stop singing when life is imprisoned or wounded (Tree Full of Angels). Somehow I find comfort in the truth metaphorically expressed: Heaven is angry in the presence of a beautiful but caged spirit and an angel is silenced while looking upon wounded beauty.

To me it speaks of God’s love for his Creation and his Creatures but also his involvement in the pains and prisons of our lives. I believe this love is present whether we have made our own prisons or been imprisoned by others, been wounded by our own actions or by the assaults of others. Jesus our Savior, the Son of Man, wept as he saw death. Jesus our Lord is pictured in The Revelation as King with fire in his eyes coming on a white horse to defeat the enemy, open all the cages of our lives, set us free, heal our wounding and take his rightful place in our lives as King of Kings.